ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


RNME 


OVJ 


3,6,  14 


„t  fl»t  SWosioi, 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


% 


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Presented  by  T)t.  F.  L. Patton. 


Division  3&2A  b 

Section  .  D  9  2 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2018  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/jeffersonianderno00dunl_0 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY 


, 


V 


*  * 


'  ■ 


' 


* 


o 


JEFFERSONIAN 

DEMOCRACY 


Which  means  the  Democracy  of 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON,  ANDREW  JACKSON 
and  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

“THAT  GOVERNMENT  IS  BEST  WHICH  GOVERNS  LEAST” 


BY 


JOHN  R.  DUNLAP 


PUBLISHED  BY 

THE  JEFFERSONIAN  SOCIETY 
120  LIBERTY  STREET,  NEW  YORK,  U.  S.  A. 


Copyrighted,  1903 


JOHN  R.  DUNLAP 


THE  WINTHROP  PRESS 
NEW  YORK 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 

i&rePet  3Srtg;.'-(55eti.  ptnrp  Clap  Dunlap 

This  volume  is  reverently  dedicated,  as  a  civilian 
son’s  tribute  of  love  and  honor  for  the  soldier  father 
whose  manhood  and  courage  prompted  him  to  fight, 
through  four  years,  in  the  ranks  of  the  patriots 
who  preserved  “our  Union,  the  last  anchor  of  our 
hope,  and  that  alone  which  is  to  prevent  this  heavenly 
country  from  becoming  an  arena  of  gladiators.” 


PREFACE. 


This  book  is  a  result  of  full  thirty  years’ 
study  and  observation  of  political,  economic, 
and  industrial  conditions  in  the  United  States. 
During  the  past  six  years,  also,  four  separate 
visits  to  and  many  months  of  residence  and  ac¬ 
tive  work  in  Europe,  have  afforded  me  unusual 
opportunities  for  studying  European  institu¬ 
tions  and  conditions  in  comparison  with  our  own. 

But  the  hook  itself  has  been  hurriedly  written 
during  the  past  winter  and  spring,  while  I  have 
carried  the  responsible  direction  of  the  publish¬ 
ing  business  which  is  my  source  of  income.  For 
these  reasons  the  work  lacks  the  literary  finish, 
and  the  completeness  of  evidence  and  argument, 
which  I  should  like  to  have  given  it.  But  I 
think  it  carries  the  essential  merit  of  making  my 
position  clear  upon  the  main  subjects  discussed; 
and  I  have  faith  that  the  publication  of  the  his¬ 
toric  and  incontestable  facts  which  I  present  will 
do  something  towards  putting  the  Democratic 
party  back  upon  the  broad  highway  of  Jeffer¬ 
sonian  principles  and  precedents.  We  need  only 
follow  that,  to  be  sure  of  winning  the  highest  des¬ 
tiny  to  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  aspires. 

I  shall  now  be  glad  to  have  the  name  and  ad¬ 
dress  of  every  reader  who  wishes  to  go  upon  the 
honor  roll  of  those  who  are  determined  to  pro¬ 
claim  anew  the  immortal  principles  of  the  great 


PREFACE. 


author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Pasted  inside  the  front  cover  is  a  mailing  card 
which  explains  itself.  If  the  card  has  been  used 
by  a  previous  reader,  simply  write  the  following 
letter— a  duplicate  of  the  card— to  the  address 
indicated : 

For  Charter  Membership  in 
THE  JEFFERSONIAN  SOCIETIES. 


To  the  Secretary,  pro  tem . 

The  Jeffersonian  Societies, 

120  Liberty  St.,  New  York,  U.  S.  A. 

Dear  Sir: 


I  desire  to  be  enrolled  as  a  charter 
member  of  The  Jeffersonian  Societies,  upon  the 
understanding  (1)  that  every  member  pledges 
himself  to  promote  the  political  principles  of 
Thomas  J efferson  as  applied  to  present-day  con¬ 
ditions;  (2)  that  each  local  Society  is  to  govern 
its  own  affairs,  by  majority  vote  of  its  registered 
members  in  good  standing;  (3)  that  the  Feder¬ 
ated  or  National  Society  is  to  be  governed  by 
a  Congress  of  Representatives,  to  be  elecled  by 
majority  vote  of  the  local  Societies;  and  (4)  that 
all  contributions  of  money  for  carrying  on  the 
work  of  the  Societies  are  to  be  voluntary. 

Name  . 

Occupation .  .... 

Address . 


PREFACE. 


The  plan  is  simply  to  duplicate  the  Democratic 
Societies  which  did  such  effective  work  in  the 
time  of  Jefferson  and  Madison— but  this  time, 
to  honor  our  Societies  by  giving  them  the  name 
of  the  commanding  genius  who  proved  himself 
the  creative  and  constructive  architect  of  Ameri¬ 
can  institutions. 

We  know  what  Jefferson  and  his  followers  ac¬ 
complished;  we  know  precisely  how  they  organ¬ 
ized  for  effective  effort;  and,  for  our  time,  the 
opportunity  is  now  full  ripe  to  take  up  the  great 
work  “  which  they  who  fought  have  thus  far  so 
nobly  advanced.  ’ 7 

J.  R.  D. 

New  York,  May  20, 1903, 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTEB  I 

PAGE 

li  The  Rule  of  the  Millionaires.  ’  ’ .  1 

Jefferson’s  Fears  Realized — The  People  of  the  United 
States  now  Ruled  by  a  Formidable  Group  of  very  Rich 
Men — The  Machine,  the  Methods,  and  the  Legislative 
Measures  Clearly  Indicated — With  Searching  Character 
Sketches  of  Andrew  Carnegie,  John  D.  Rockefeller, 
and  J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  the  Men  who  do  the  Danger¬ 
ous  Work. 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Political  Machine  at  Work  . . 

Exact  Plan  of  the  Political  Machine  now  in  Control  of 
the  Party  Organization  and  the  United  States  Senate — 
Protection,  the  Party  Slogan— Roosevelt,  the  “  Strenu¬ 
ous”  Candidate— Hanna,  the  Major-General  of  Field 
Forces — Root  and  Knox,  the  Cabinet  Representatives  of 
the  Corporations  and  Trusts — Aldrich,  Senate  Leader 
for  the  Combinations — Elkins,  Allison,  Quay,  Platt, 
Depew,  and  the  Lesser  Leaders  Named — With  a  Clear 
Exposure  of  their  Methods,  their  Motives,  and  the  Legis¬ 
lative  System  whereby  they  Manufacture  Millionaires 
Wholesale. 


CHAPTER  III 

Outlines  of  the  Problems  Now  Confronting  Us .  87 

A  Rapid  Sketch  of  the  larger  Political  Problems  now 
presented  for  solution  at  the  Ballot  Box — The  Conditions 
of  To-day  in  Contrast  with  the  Happy  Conditions  Ex¬ 
isting  before  the  Civil  War— Thirty  Years  of  Desperate 
and  Dangerous  Agitation  in  favor  of  Fiat  Money, 
Socialism,  Paternalism,  and  Anarchism— The  Utter 
Confusion  of  Thought  now  Current  as  a  Result  of 
Simple  Neglect  in  Studying  American  History  and 
American  Precedents— The  Remedies  which  are  Certain 
to  Cure  Our  Ills,  so  Soon  as  we  Apply  Them. 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  IV 

PAGE 

The  Seamy  Side  of  Our  Prosperity .  118 

Awful  Facts  of  Common  Knowledge,  which  should  bring 
the  Blush  of  Shame  to  the  Cheeks  of  every  Son  and 
Grandson  of  the  Patriots  of  America  who  fought,  who 
bled,  and  who  died,  that  this  might  be  a  Land  of  Lib¬ 
erty  and  Opportunity— Child  Slavery  in  the  Anthracite 
Region— Worse  Child  Slavery  in  the  South— Adult  Slav¬ 
ery  Everywhere — A  Slavery  of  White  Freemen,  beside 
which  Negro  Slavery  in  the  South  was  Child-like  and 
Irresponsible  Happiness— “  Suffer  Little  Children  to 
come  unto  Me,  for  of  such  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  * ’ 

CHAPTER  V 

A  Few  Pages  of  Patriotic  History .  155 

We  must  get  back  to  First  Principles— And  the  Thing 
More  Needful  than  All  Others,  is  that  we  shall  now  Read 
and  Understand  Exactly  what  Our  Fathers  Fought  for 
and  Planned,  for  Themselves  and  for  Us— Samuel  Adams, 
the  Colonial  Leader  of  New  England — George  Mason, 
the  Colonial  Leader  of  Virginia — Alexander  Hamilton, 
the  Brilliant  but  Blind  Leader  who  stood  for  “the 
European  Past” — Thomas  Jefferson,  the  Unmatched 
and  Dauntless  Leader  who  stood  for  “the  American 
Future”— Jefferson’s  Priceless  and  Imperishable  Work. 

CHAPTER  VI 

Andrew  Jackson,  Nullification,  and  Bank  Monopoly..  351 

A  Brief  Record  of  the  Superlatively  Grand  Work  of  a 
Born  Soldier — The  President  who  taught  us  how  to 
Preserve  Union  without  Senseless  Resort  to  Warfare 
Among  Ourselves — The  Freeman  who  Personified  the 
Genius  of  Our  Race  and  Our  Institutions — The  Patriot 
who  never  Desired  or  Considered  any  other  Thought 
than  to  Advance  the  Happiness  of  his  Kindred  and  his 
Kind — The  Soldier  who  Lived  to  Write,  in  Deeds  of 
Valor  and  in  Words  of  Dauntless  Conviction,  one  of  the 
Proudest  Pages  in  all  Human  History. 

CHAPTER  VII 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  Forgotten  History .  209 

A  Message  from  the  Son  of  a  Soldier  who  Fought  and 
Bled  in  Defense  of  Lincoln’s  Principles — For  Young 


CONTENTS 


Yll 


PAGE 

Men  who  know  nothing  of  Lincoln  ’s  Inner  Thought 
and  Purposes— For  Old  Men  who  have  Forgotten  the 
Fundamental  Principles  for  which  he  Lived,  Labored, 
and  Died— For  Thinking  Men  who  have  Neglected  a 
Study  of  the  Forgotten  History  which  led  up,  Step  by 
Step,  to  the  Awful  Horrors  of  our  Civil  War  For 
American  Freemen  who  now  mean  to  Stand  True  to  the 
Principles  of  the  Man  who  Wrote:  “Let  us  have  faith 
right  makes  might.  ” 

CHAPTEE  VIII 

The  Cause  op  Panics— The  Money  Question .  252 

A  Concise  Eeview  of  the  whole  Money  Question,  from 
the  Date  of  our  Declaration  of  Independence  to  this 
Hour— Paper  Money  the  Curse  of  the  Eevolution— “  Not 
Worth  a  Continental,  ’  ’  the  Eock  upon  which  Independ¬ 
ence  was  all  but  Wrecked— The  Panic  of  1837  due  to 
State  Bank  Notes— The  Panic  of  1857  also  due  to 
“Wild-Cat”  and  “Eed  Dog”  issues  of  State  Bank 
Notes— The  Familiar  History  of  the  Panics  of  1873-9 
and  1893-97  in  Parallel  Columns— The  Patriotic  and 
Priceless  Services  of  Salmon  P.  Chase  in  Firmly  Estab¬ 
lishing  our  Present  System  of  National  Banks. 

CHAPTEE  IX 

The  Tariff  as  Eelated  to  Trusts. .  296 

Environment  Makes  the  Man — Intelligent  Americans 
Believe  in  Protection  only  because  the  Living  Generation 
has  Grown  to  Manhood  under  that  Stupid,  Sinful,  and 
Barbarous  System — High  Prices  Explain  the  Fabulous 
Profits  of  the  Trusts— “The  Tariff  is  the  Mother  of 
Trusts”— And  Carnegie’s  Millions  in  “First  Mort¬ 
gage  Gold  Bonds”  are  the  Fruits  of  his  Teaching  Pro¬ 
tection  for  America  (where  he  makes  his  money)  and 
Free  Trade  for  Britain  (where  he  makes  his  home)  !  — 
Facts  which  every  American  Freeman  now  needs  to 
Eead  about  and  Ponder. 


CHAPTEE  X 

The  Eegulation  of  Inter-State  Commerce. 


351 


A  Mere  Assembly  of  Quotations  from  the  Advocates, 
Promoters,  and  Beneficiaries  of  the  Combinations  and 
Trusts,  with  Eunning  Comments  by  the  late  Chief  Jus¬ 
tice  Eussell  of  Great  Britain,  and  the  Author,  to  show 
that  what  we  need,  and  all  we  need,  is  Publicity,  in 


Vlll 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Corporation  Finance — The  “  Legalized  ”  Aristocrats 
tried  to  Confuse  us  in  Hamilton’s  Day — The  Bank 
Monopolists  tried  to  Confuse  us  in  Jackson’s  Day— 

The  same  “Legalized”  Aristocrats  tried  to  Confuse  us 
in  Lincoln ’s  Day— And  a  Few  Rich  Men  and  Rich  Fam¬ 
ilies  have  now  won  Millions  at  the  People ’s  Expense — 

But  Publicity  will  Cure  All  Our  Ills — And  the  Genius 
of  Salmon  P.  Chase  has  Pointed  the  Way. 

CHAPTER  XI 

Mine  Monopoly  and  Land  Speculation .  388 

A  Revelation  of  the  Methods  whereby  our  vast  Public 
Domain,  the  Richest  Heritage  to  which  a  Free  People 
has  ever  been  Heir  to,  has  been  Deeded  Away  to  Land 
Monopolists  and  Mining  Speculators  whose  Sole  Object 
is  to  Enrich  Themselves,  without  regard  to  Cost  or  Con¬ 
sequences  to  the  People  at  large— Our  Fathers  Fought 
the  Battles  and  Paid  the  Price  that  we  Might  Enjoy 
Equal  Opportunity  before  the  Law  in  Cultivating  and 
Producing  from  Nature ’s  Bounty  to  all  Mankind — 

And  here  is  a  Record  of  Indisputable  Rights  which 
every  Freeman  now  Needs  to  Study — And  then  Fight 
for,  Should  Occasion  Call. 

CHAPTER  XII 

From  Julius  Caesar  to  Thomas  Jefferson .  436 

A  Simple  Record  of  the  Obvious  Fact  that  Julius 
Caesar  Fought  the  Battles,  Organized  the  System,  and 
Wrote  the  Laws  which  have  Governed  Europe  since  the 
Hour  that  Caesar  was  Assassinated— A  Further  Record 
of  the  Insurmountable  Fact  that  Thomas  Jefferson  was 
the  Incomparable  Genius  who  gave  us  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  the  Virginia  Code,  as  a  Model  for 
all  the  States,  the  System  for  Settling  our  Public  Do¬ 
main  with  Producing  Farmers,  the  Purchase  of  the  vast 
Louisiana  Territory,  and  then,  by  Precept  and  Ex¬ 
ample,  Pointed  Straight  to  Every  Principle  and  Policy 
now  Needful  to  Guide  Us  on  Our  Way. 


A  Popular  Edition 

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with  an  effective  Blue  and  Gray 
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PRICE,  50  cts.  PER  COPY 

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ADDRESS 


THE  JEFFERSONIAN  SOCIETY 
120  LIBERTY  ST.,  NEW  YORK,  U.  S.  A. 


THE  RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


“  From  panic,  pride,  and  terror. 

Revenge  that  knows  no  rein, 

Light,  haste  and  lawless  error. 

Protect  us  yet  again.” 

— Hymn  before  Battle. 

“I  am  a  staunch  Protectionist. ’ 1  —Andrew  Carnegie. 

“The  tariff  is  the  mother  of  Trusts. ”  — Henry  0.  Havemeyer. 

“It  is  too  late  to  argue  about  the  advantages  of  industrial 
combinations.  They  are  a  necessity.”  — John  D.  Rockefeller. 

Community  of  interest — “Is  when  a  number  of  men  who 
own  property  can  do  what  they  like  with  it.  ’  ’ 

— J.  Pierpont  Morgan. 

“The  public  be  damned. tf  — William  H.  Vanderbilt. 


Chapter  I. 

Jefferson’s  fears  have  been  realized. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  are  ruled  to¬ 
day  by  a  formidable  group  of  very  rich  men — a 
“community-of-interest”  alliance  between  mil¬ 
lionaires  and  politicians  who  have  captured  the 
Republican  party,  whose  only  gospel  is  gain,  and 
who,  in  consequence,  have  enacted  the  most  scan¬ 
dalous  legislation  for  fleecing  the  people  that 
ever  disgraced  the  statute  books  of  a  civilized 
state ! 

This  is  strong  language. 

But  I  have  weighed  the  words  carefully;  I  do 


2 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


not  think  they  over-state  the  facts;  and  I  shall 
straightway  name  the  men  and  present  the  evi¬ 
dence  to  sustain  so  deliberate  and  bold  a  state¬ 
ment. 

The  conditions  of  today  are  not  new  to  Ameri¬ 
can  politics.  But  I  fancy  that  many  thinking 
Americans,  engrossed  in  business  and  too  busy 
to  study  history,  will  be  startled  by  the  discovery 
that  we  are  face  to  face  with  exactly  the  same 
forces  of  money  and  aristocracy,  bottomed  on 
political  corruption,  which  at  the  birth  of  the 
Nation  gravely  menaced  free  institutions;  which 
a  generation  later  threw  our  finances  into  utter 
confusion  and  panic;  and  which,  scarcely  more 
than  a  generation  ago,  plunged  us  into  a  holo¬ 
caust  of  civil  war  the  most  frightful  of  recorded 
history. 

For  in  Jefferson's  day  it  was  Alexander  Ham¬ 
ilton's  system  of  monarchy  and  aristocracy, 
“bottomed  on  corruption,"  as  opposed  to  demo¬ 
cratic  principles  of  government.  In  Jackson's 
day,  and  in  Jackson's  memorable  phrase,  the 
issue  made  out  was  simply,  “Shall  the  govern¬ 
ment  or  the  people  rule  I ' '  And  in  Lincoln 's  day, 
it  was  Slavery  and  secession,  in  open  array 
against  Protection  and  confiscation,  that  enabled 
a  group  of  reckless  Southern  leaders  to  lash  a 
patriotic  and  loyally  Union  people  into  unwilling 
rebellion,  through  a  persistent  and  sinful  appeal 
to  the  pocket-interest  of  a  slave-holding  aristoc¬ 
racy. 

“For  where  the  treasure  is,  there  will  the 
heart  be  also.  ” 

In  later  chapters  I  shall  present  the  evidence  of 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


3 


history  to  prove  all  this.  And  here  and  now,  I 
shall  present  evidence  in  plenty  to  show  that  in 
the  coming  Presidential  campaign  the  issue  to  be 
squarely  presented— again  in  Jackson’s  telling 
phrase— will  be : 

Shall  the  Trusts,  or  the  people  rule? 

Shall  we  govern  ourselves,  or  shall  we  dele¬ 
gate  that  duty  to  a  group  of  our  great  Captains 
of  Finance  ? 

“Sometimes  it  is  said  that  man  cannot  be  trusted  with  the 
government  of  himself. 

“Can  he  then  be  trusted  with  the  government  of  others? 

“Or  have  we  found  angels  in  the  form  of  kings  to  govern 
him? 

“Let  history  answer  this  question. ”  — Thomas  Jefferson. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  answer  that  the 
American  people  will  give.  It  will  be  the  same 
answer  that  they  gave  when  they  swept  the  Fed¬ 
eral  party  into  merited  contempt  and  oblivion— 
The  same  answer  that  they  gave  when  they  en¬ 
shrined  Andrew  Jackson  in  immortal  fame  for 
his  priceless  service  in  stamping-out  the  rebel¬ 
lion  of  the  Nullifiers  and  in  choking-off  the  mon¬ 
opoly  of  the  people’s  banking  facilities— The 
same  answer  that  they  gave  when  they  made  a 
President  of  a  rail-splitter,  when  they  tore  the 
shackles  from  four  million  slaves,  and  when  they 
dyed  the  Constitution  in  blood  and  sacrifice  to 
prove,  in  Jefferson’s  prophetic  and  immortal 
words,  that  “we  shall  never  give  up  our  Union, 
the  last  anchor  of  our  hope,  and  that  alone  which 
is  to  prevent  this  heavenly  country  from  becom¬ 
ing  an  arena  of  gladiators.” 

And  that  we  may  clearly  foresee  the  exact  na- 


4 


.JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


ture  of  the  answer  which  is  surely  coming,  it  is 
only  necessary  to  review  the  recent  past— only 
necessary  to  show  that  the  Republican  party  long 
ago  betrayed  and  forfeited  the  confidence  of  the 
American  people,  as  repeated  defeat  has  clearly 
proved. 

Thus,  as  early  as  1876,  barely  more  than  ten 
years  after  the  great  Civil  War  had  been  fought 
and  won,  the  corruption  of  the  whisky  ring,  the 
Star  Route  frauds,  and  the  Credit  Mobilier  out¬ 
rage,  fairly  elected  Tilden  to  the  Presidency— 
and  that,  too,  by  a  popular  majority  of  nearly 
four  hundred  thousand  freemen. 

Again  in  1880  an  enormous  majority  of  the 
people  voted  in  favor  of  Hancock,  the  Democrat, 
Weaver,  the  greenbacker,  and  other  candidates; 
but  through  the  folly  of  the  greenback  and  prohi¬ 
bition  enthusiasts,  in  dividing  the  great  popular 
majority,  Garfield  was  elected  by  a  plurality  vote 
of  the  States— and  that  solely  because  the  re¬ 
sumption  of  specie  payments  in  1879  gave  us  the 
boom  of  1880,  thus  enabling  the  Republicans, 
under  Blaine’s  shrewd  leadership,  to  claim  full 
credit  for  the  prosperity  born  of  the  first  triumph 
of  sound  money,  and  to  buy  enough  votes  “in 
blocks  of  five”  to  carry  the  doubtful  States. 

In  1884  Mr.  Cleveland  was  elected  over  “The 
Plumed  Knight”  of  the  Republican  hosts— ob¬ 
viously  because  “magnetic”  Mr.  Blaine  had 
identified  himself  with  all  the  legislative  and  po¬ 
litical  corruption  that  the  people  repudiated  in 
the  Reform  campaign  of  1876. 

True  to  his  Democratic  trust,  and  well-know¬ 
ing  that  he  would  imperil  his  re-election,  Mr. 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


5 


Cleveland  gave  us  the  famous  Tariff  Reform 
message  of  1887.  Then  it  was,  for  the  first  time 
in  American  history,  that  the  Tariff  question  was 
squarely  presented,  apart  from  all  other  issues. 
Mr.  Harrison  stood  for  Protection;  Mr.  Cleve¬ 
land  stood  for  “a  tariff  for  revenue  only.”  Mr. 
Harrison  was  elected  by  a  plurality  vote  of  the 
States— but  once  more,  take  note,  Mr.  Cleveland 
received  98,017  more  votes  than  the  people  gave 
to  the  Protection  candidate.  The  significance  of 
the  latter  event  is  shown  in  the  sequel. 

The  Republicans  were  no  sooner  restored  to 
power  than  they  passed  the  McKinley  Bill,  for 
the  exclusive  benefit  of  the  protected  manufac¬ 
turers;  and  worse  than  that,  they  passed  the 
Sherman  Silver  Coinage  law,  as  the  price  delib¬ 
erately  paid  to  the  silver  miners  of  the  Western 
States  for  votes  enough  to  enact  the  McKinley 
Bill. 

Now  observe  the  result! 

Protection  and  Inflation  began  at  once  to  do 
their  work.  All  the  materials  of  manufacture 
were  enhanced  in  price,  and  the  startling  ad¬ 
vances  in  the  prices  of  all  the  necessaries  of  the 
home,  furnished  the  newspaper  sensation  of  the 
day. 

Then  again  the  people  declared  themselves — 
and  this  time  with  unmistakable  emphasis!  An 
overwhelming  Democratic  majority  was  returned 
in  the  Congressional  elections  of  1890;  and  Mr. 
Cleveland,  having  declared  himself  on  the  silver 
issue,  was  foreordained  as  the  only  possible 
Democratic  candidate.  In  the  Presidential  elec- 


6 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


tion  which  followed  in  1892,  Mr.  Harrison  stood 
squarely  for  Protection  and  proved  sympathy 
for  silver  inflation;  and  Mr.  Cleveland  stood 
squarely  for  Tariff  Reform  and  Sound  Money. 

Mr.  Cleveland  was  triumphantly  elected ! 

He  went  hack  to  the  White  House  armed  with  a 
statesman’s  courage  to  execute  the  people’s  will; 
and  he  did  a  patriot’s  work— as  history  cannot 
fail  to  tell. 

But,  alas,  Republican  Protection  and  Republi¬ 
can  Inflation  had  done  their  deadly  work.  The 
seeds  of  disaster  had  been  sown.  We  were 
plunged  headlong  into  the  most  desperate  and 
most  prolonged  panic  and  industrial  depression 
that  the  American  people  have  ever  been  called 
upon  to  suffer ! 

The  history  of  what  followed  is  too  recent,  and 
too  vivid  in  painful  recollection,  to  call  for  rec¬ 
ord  here.  I  will  simply  point  to  the  conspicuous 
fact,  known  of  all  men,  that  Mr.  McKinley  was 
twice  elected  because  he  had  been  forced  to  de¬ 
clare  for  sound  money,  and  because  patriotic 
Democrats  and  tariff  reformers  were  forced  to 
vote  for  him  to  save  the  Nation  from  a  maelstrom 
of  repudiation  and  financial  chaos.  In  other 
words,  they  voted  against  Mr.  Bryan’s  free  coin¬ 
age  for  silver — not  for  Mr.  McKinley’s  Protec¬ 
tion.  It  was,  therefore,  the  weakness  of  the 
Democratic  platform,  not  McKinley’s  strength, 
that  twice  made  the  American  people  unwilling 
victims  of  the  deep  schemes  of  the  Protection 
leaders.  And  how  adroitly  they  have  since  used 
the  golden  opportunity  we  shall  now  see. 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


7 


Though  they  were  clearly  commissioned  and 
definitely  pledged  to  put  our  finances  in  order; 
though  they  well  knew  that  the  people  had  em¬ 
phatically  and  repeatedly  repudiated  Protection; 
yet  the  Republicans  were  no  sooner  back  in  power 
than  McKinley’s  first  act  was  to  send  a  brief 
message  to  Congress  calling  for  the  immediate 
passage  of  a  law  increasing  tariff  duties — calling 
for  the  iniquities  of  that  crowning  measure  of  po¬ 
litical  perfidy,  the  Dingley  Bill. 

Not  a  word  was  said  in  the  message  about  cur¬ 
rency  reform.  Not  an  honest  move  was  made  to 
legally  affirm  the  gold  standard.  Not  until 
March  14th,  1900— three  full  years  after  McKin¬ 
ley  took  his  seat— did  they  pass  the  Gold  Stand¬ 
ard  Bill.  And  to  this  day  they  have  done  abso¬ 
lutely  nothing  to  give  simplicity,  uniformity  and 
elasticity  to  our  numerous,  confusing  and  in¬ 
adequate  issues  of  paper  and  silver  money. 

In  naked  truth,  they  have  used  the  money  ques¬ 
tion  precisely  as  Hamilton  used  it  in  his  day ; 
precisely  as  Blaine  used  the  greenback  issue  in 
his  day;  and  precisely  as  we  have  lately  seen 
Morgan  and  the  Standard  Oil  bankers  make  ef¬ 
fective  use  of  the  money  stringency  in  Wall 
Street— used  it  as  a  threat  and  a  club  to  brow¬ 
beat  the  banking  and  commercial  classes  into 
submission  to  their  tyrannous  rule;  used  it  to 
put  stocks  up  and  to  put  stocks  down ;  used  it  to 
sow  confusion  and  dread  in  the  minds  of  the  peo¬ 
ple;  used  it  as  the  one  terrible  weapon  which 
makes  men  of  vast  wealth  easy  masters  of  the 


8 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


wild  scenes  of  speculation  which  have  been 
enacted  in  Wall  Street  in  recent  years. 

11  But  time  at  last  sets  all  things  even; 

And  if  we  but  wait  the  hour, 

There  never  yet  was  human  power 
That  could  evade,  if  unforgiven, 

The  patient  search  and  vigil  long 
Of  him  who  treasures  up  a  wrong.  ’ 1 

Verily  the  poets  speak  the  people’s  thought! 
At  last,  at  last,  we  have  the  beneficiaries  of  Pro¬ 
tection  cornered  where  they  can  not  get  away. 

For  deception  is  now  no  longer  possible  ! 

Within  the  past  five  years  Wall  Street  stock¬ 
jobbers  have  done  what  thirty  years  of  honest 
tariff  reform  effort  could  not  do.  American 
manufacturers  now  plainly  see  that  there  is  in¬ 
deed  boundless  prosperity  in  Protection— for  a 
few  people !  American  workingmen  now  scoff  at 
thread-bare  threats  of  “the  pauper  labor  of  Eu¬ 
rope.”  American  farmers  in  Iowa  and  the 
Middle  West  are  in  open  revolt  over  the  low 
prices  at  which  our  manufactures  are  sold  in  for¬ 
eign  markets.  And  the  vaunted  “economies”  of 
industrial  combinations  —  which  Rockefeller 
shrewdly  tells  us  “are  a  necessity”  to  cheapen 
production— have  been  turned  into  maddening 
mockery  by  the  high  prices  which  the  combina¬ 
tions  exact  for  all  the  materials  of  home  manu¬ 
facture;  by  the  higher  prices  which  they  exact 
for  every  necessary  of  home  consumption — not¬ 
ably  beef,  coal,  and  coal  oil ! 

There  is  indeed  but  one  pretense  left  to  the 
Prosperity  Prophets— and  that  is  that  we  shall 
be  plunged  into  another  panic  if  they  be  driven 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


9 


from  power.  Blaine  fooled  some  people  with 
that  pretense  before;  but  it  is  a  pretense  which 
can  fool  them  no  more.  For  since  Blaine’s  day 
the  people  have  been  thoroughly  well  educated 
in  problems  of  money  and  finance.  They  read 
with  too-evident  satisfaction — unalloyed  by 
alarm — the  terrific  tales  of  panic  and  disaster 
which  overwhelm  Wall  Street  when  Morgan  and 
Hill  go  up  against  Harriman  and  Kuhn-Loeb; 
when  Rockefeller  and  Rogers  tackle  Lawson  and 
Heinze;  when  Gates  and  his  friends  shrewdly 
corner  control  of  the  L.  &  N. ;  or  when  Standard 
Oil  “bandits”  (as  Gates  called  them),  make 
money  tight  and  issue  solemn  warnings  through 
Mr.  Vanderlip  to  save  the  Nation  from  the  foul 
plots  of  the  “Western  plungers.” 

The  people  clearly  understand,  also,  that  the 
promoters  and  underwriters  of  “industrial  com¬ 
binations”  have  made  many  millions  by  putting 
these  stocks  up ;  and  now,  in  cruel  ‘  ‘  bear  ’  ’  fash¬ 
ion,  they  are  beginning  to  make  other  millions 
by  putting  stocks  down— by  selling  short  “to 
shake  out  the  little  fellows.”  The  process  is 
spectacular,  and  it  is  exceedingly  rough  on  the 
“little  fellows.”  But  it  spells  something  very 
different  from  panic.  For  obviously  men  with 
millions  at  their  command  are  certain  to  buy 
when  stocks  are  really  cheap — and  then  straight¬ 
way  they  turn  “bulls”  again!  They  want  divi¬ 
dends.  And  to  get  dividends  they  must  keep  the 
factories  going! 

No,  no;  they  want  no  serious  panic— and  we 
may  rest  entirely  sure  they  will  not  permit  one. 
They  know,  as  the  people  now  clearly  under- 


10 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


stand,  that  the  causes  of  panic  and  industrial  de¬ 
pression  lie  deeper.  They  know,  as  men  of  in¬ 
telligence  the  world  over  well  know,  that  our  last 
panic,  with  all  its  direful  results,  was  due  solely 
to  the  silver  craze— due  specifically  to  the  Sher¬ 
man  Silver  Coinage  Law.  And  we  have  no  less 
an  authority  than  John  Sherman  himself,  for  the 
statement  that  he  introduced  and  passed  that 
bill  in  a  Republican  Congress,  because  a  majority 
of  both  the  Senate  and  House  stood  ready  to 
pass  a  measure  for  the  free  coinage  of  silver, 
while  a  Republican  President  in  the  White 
House  stood  ready  to  sign  it. 

The  world  well  remembers,  also,  that  Mr.  Mc¬ 
Kinley  was  the  outspoken  advocate  of  the  free 
coinage  of  silver ;  and  previous  to  his  nomination 
for  the  Presidency  his  speeches  teemed  with  dec¬ 
larations  rivaling  the  worst  that  Mr.  Bryan  has 
ever  uttered. 

The  record  further  proves  that  it  was  Mr. 
Cleveland,  a  Democratic  President,  who  called 
an  extra  session  of  Congress  to  repeal  the  Sher¬ 
man  Silver  Coinage  Law ;  and  it  was  Mr.  Cleve¬ 
land  who  stood  manfully  to  his  duty,  through 
long  weeks  of  dire  panic  and  bitter  warfare  with 
Free  Silver  Republicans  and  Free  Silver  Dem¬ 
ocrats— in  the  Senate— until  that  Republican 
legislation  was  wiped  from  our  statute  books. 
And  to  that  priceless  public  service,  more  than  to 
all  other  causes  combined,  we  owe  the  prolonged 
prosperity  which  we  enjoy— and  shall  continue 
to  enjoy !  For  in  the  light  of  this  glad  day  even 
school  boys  understand  that  this  mighty  Nation 
is  yet  in  the  infancy  of  its  power,  its  wealth,  and 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


11 


its  greatness.  No  menace  of  foreign  nations  can 
now  affright  ns.  No  sort  of  panic  can  now  stay 
our  progress.  And  should  an  earthquake  engulf 
Wall  Street;  should  all  its  millions  and  its  multi¬ 
millionaires  be  swept  into  oblivion  in  a  night— 
this  eighty  millions  of  freemen  would  wake  up 
next  morning  to  marvel  at  the  havoc  that  had  been 
wrought,  and  then  straightway  begin  the  work  of 
counting  the  cost,  repairing  the  damage,  filling 
the  places  of  the  missing  men,  and  going  straight 
on  with  the  mission  “which  they  who  fought  have 
thus  far  so  nobly  advanced. ’  ’ 

11  Future  events,  of  whatever  nature  they  may  be,  will  not  de¬ 
prive  the  Americans  of  their  climate  or  of  their  inland  seas,  of 
their  great  rivers  or  of  their  exuberant  soil.  Nor  will  bad  laws, 
revolutions,  or  anarchy,  be  able  to  obliterate  that  love  of  pros¬ 
perity  and  that  spirit  of  enterprise  which  seem  to  be  the  dis¬ 
tinctive  characteristics  of  their  race,  or  to  extinguish  the  knowl¬ 
edge  which  guides  them  on  their  way. 

“Thus  in  the  midst  of  the  uncertain  future,  one  event  at 
least  is  sure.  At  a  period  which  may  be  said  to  be  near,  the 
Anglo-Americans  will  alone  cover  the  immense  space  contained 
between  the  polar  regions  and  the  tropics,  extending  from  the 
coast  of  the  Atlantic  to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.” 

—M.  de  Tocqueville,  in  1835. 

But  the  time  has  come  for  plain  speaking. 

The  time  has  come  when  prudence  and  patriot¬ 
ism  alike  demand  that  we  shall  name  our  rulers, 
disclose  their  motives,  and  describe  the  exact 
methods  whereby  they  win  their  millions. 

The  task  is  not  a  pleasant  one.  I  should  gladly 
leave  it  to  others.  I  should  much  prefer  to  credit 
every  public  man  with  all  the  good  intentions  he 
professes— much  prefer  to  believe  that  the 
“mighty  millionaires ’ ’  and  “princely  benefac- 


12 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


tors’ ’  who  manage  onr  finances,  manipulate  our 
politics,  and  “organize”  our  industries,  are  real¬ 
ly  concerned  for  the  public  welfare.  But  actions 
speak  louder  than  words.  No  man  can  blind  him¬ 
self  to  what  all  thinking  men  plainly  see.  The  mil¬ 
lionaires  are  thinking  only  of  their  millions  and 
themselves— “the  public  be  damned!”  The  mo¬ 
tives  which  dominate  the  thought  and  purpose  of 
every  man  of  them,  are  (1)  greed  of  wealth  and 
power;  (2)  glory  in  triumph  over  personal  ri¬ 
vals;  and  (3)  the  delusive  hope  that  splendid 
gifts  in  money  can  delude  the  people,  buy  the  ad¬ 
miration  of  living  men,  and  mortgage  the  loving 
gratitude  of  men  and  women  yet  unborn. 

I  know,  as  millions  of  others  well  know,  and  as 
a  great  scientist  has  aptly  said,  that  ‘  ‘  the  inherit¬ 
ed  predatory  tendency  of  men  to  seize  upon  the 
fruits  of  other  people’s  labor  is  still  very 
strong.”  And  Wall  Street  affords  conclusive 
proof  that  the  predatory  tendency  of  the  strong 
men  of  our  time  takes  the  very  definite  form  of 
stocks  and  bonds,  watered  wholesale,  and  issued 
for  billions  of  money — upon  which  the  people  are 
heavily  taxed  to  pay  interest  and  dividends.  I 
see  plainly,  also,  that  whereas  the  whole  Ameri¬ 
can  people  realize  that  we  are  being  thus  ruled 
and  taxed  for  the  special  benefit  of  a  few  rich 
men  and  rich  families,  very  few  Americans  un¬ 
derstand  exactly  how  the  thing  is  being  done. 
But  I  have  made  a  business  of  studying  the  prob¬ 
lem  intently ;  and  through  study  I  have  come  to 
see  that  the  system  is  so  simple  and  obvious,  and 
the  remedies  so  well-tried  and  so  certain  to  cure 
the  ills  which  afflict  us,  that  the  unvarnished  facts 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


13 


only  need  to  be  stated  in  cold  print,  without  fear 
or  favor,  to  make  an  end  of  the  shameless  system 
from  which  we  suffer.  For  the  truth  is  that, 
through  deception  and  secrecy — through  the  ab¬ 
sence  of  publicity — we  are  actually  ruled  by  men 
who  hold  no  public  offices,  but  who  buy,  own,  bull¬ 
doze  and  direct  the  little  politicians  who  scramble 
for  the  “ honors’ ’  and  offices  of  the  Republican 
machine. 


“Let  those  flatter  who  fear;  it  is  not  an 
American  art.”  — Thomas  Jefferson. 

The  need  of  the  hour,  as  I  see  it,  therefore,  is 
that  we  name  the  leaders  among  the  millionaires 
who  are  ruling  us;  that  we  name  the  politicians 
in  high  office  who  obey  the  behests  of  these  lead¬ 
ers;  and  that  we  describe  the  exact  plan  of  the 
political  machine  through  which  the  work  is 
done.  For  the  political  machine  holds  all  the  se¬ 
crets  of  the  millions  that  now  amaze  and  menace 
us;  and  whereas  long  and  costly  experience  has 
made  us  perfectly  familiar  with  the  little  local 
machines,  very  few  people  clearly  comprehend 
the  system  and  organization  of  the  formidable 
political  machine  which  is  centered  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  and  which,  through  “community- 
of-interest”  between  millionaires  and  politicians, 
now  absolutely  rules  the  whole  country — under 
the  personal  direction  of  a  few  men  who  manu¬ 
facture  and  manipulate  Trust  stocks,  and  who 
control  the  invaluable  franchises  which  the  peo¬ 
ple  have  granted  for  railroads,  pipe-lines,  and 
all  public  utilities. 

What  we  need,  in  truth,  and  just  about  all  we 


14 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


need,  is  the  spirit  and  language  of  Andrew  Jack- 
son— as  our  fathers  needed  him  sorely  in  1860! 

1  ‘This  is  only  justice;  this  we  ask  of  government ;  this  we  are 
entitled  to;  and  this  we  must  and  will  have.  This  may  be 
thought  strong  language;  but  it  is  the  language  that  freemen, 
when  they  are  only  claiming  a  fulfillment  of  their  rights,  ought 
to  use.  It  is  a  language  they  ought  to  be  taught  to  lisp  from 
their  cradles. f}  — Andrew  Jackson. 

We  need  the  clear  thinking  and  the  fearless 
writing  that  Jefferson  taught  Jackson  to  employ. 
For  in  our  day  as  in  Jefferson’s  day,  and  then 
again  in  Jackson’s  day,  we  are  face  to  face  with 
identically  the  same  forces  of  sordid  greed  and 
sinful  corruption.  The  forces  are  the  same;  the 
methods  are  the  same;  the  issues  are  the  same; 
and  the  remedies  are  so  familiar  that  they  need 
only  re-statement  to  find  instant  recognition — 
and  prompt  application!  And  just  so  surely  as 
Washington,  Jefferson,  Jackson,  and  Lincoln 
won  before  us,  so  we  shall  win  now — so  our  chil¬ 
dren  shall  go  on  winning  throughout  all  future 
time! 

The  great  Republic  is,  in  truth,  yet  in  the  mak¬ 
ing— is  hardly  past  the  boyhood  stage  of  rapid 
growth  and  development.  Dewey’s  immortal 
work  at  Manila  first  opened  the  eyes  of  living 
generations  to  our  great  future;  and  though 
the  Trust  bubble,  like  the  South  Sea  bubble  and 
the  Mississippi  bubble,  has  since  puffed-up  to 
menace  and  affright  the  few,  it  carries  no  terrors 
for  the  manhood  of  the  new  race  which  has 
stepped  upon  the  world’s  stage  to  proclaim 
anew  that  the  fittest  shall  rule,  and  that  the  poor, 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


15 


the  lowly  and  the  helpless  shall  not  be  enslaved 
to  the  service  of  the  sordid  few  who  are  debased 
and  debauched  by  money-worship. 

“  But  hark!  the  bugle’s  blowing  on  the  peaks, 

,  And  hark!  a  murmur  as  of  many  feet. 

The  cry  of  Captains,  the  divine  alarm! 

Look,  the  last  Son  of  Time  comes  hurrying  on, 

The  strong  young  Titan  of  Democracy !  ’  ’ 

I  shall  set  down  naught  in  malice;  for  I  have 
no  personal  grievance  to  avenge,  and  I  fain  would 
leave  unsaid  much  that  must  be  written.  But  I 
have  lived  through  two  prolonged  and  desperate 
panics ;  I  have  been  eye  witness  to  the  awful  dis¬ 
aster  and  wretchedness  they  entailed;  and  I  re¬ 
member,  as  though  it  were  yesterday,  what  hap¬ 
pened  at  Pittsburg  in  1877,  at  Homestead  in 
1892,  and  at  Chicago  in  1894.  I  know  the  full 
portent  and  prophecy  of  that  latest  enormity  of 
‘ 4 man’s  inhumanity  to  man”  in  the  anthracite  re¬ 
gion  ;  I  clearly  understand  what  free  born  Ameri¬ 
cans  now  feel,  and  think,  and  suffer ;  and  as  a  sol¬ 
dier  Js  son  who  well  knows,  from  tried  use,  that 
“the  pen  is  mightier  than  the  sword,”  I  mean  to 
make  for  peace ,  by  laying  bare  in  these  pages  the 
sordid  motives,  the  political  methods,  and  the 
social  wrongs  which  steadily  make  for  strife. 

The  conspicuous  leaders,  the  men  who  do  the 
dangerous  work,  are  Andrew  Carnegie,  John  D. 
Rockefeller,  and  J.  Pierpont  Morgan.  Many 
other  “Captains  of  Industry”  and  “Captains  of 
Finance”  might  be  added  to  the  list;  but  we  are 
not  concerned  with  the  rank  and  file.  I  select 
to  place  responsibility  where  responsibility  be- 


16 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


longs— upon  the  influential  and  powerful  lead¬ 
ers;  the  men  who  think,  who  plan,  who  act,  and 
who  have  pocketed  the  lion’s  share  of  all  the  Pro¬ 
tection  spoil. 

“  For  the  love  of  money  is  a  root  of  all  kinds  of  evil.” 

I  put  Carnegie  in  the  forefront  of  the  offenders, 
because  he  is  the  personal  embodiment  of  Protec¬ 
tion — the  spectacular  demonstration  of  the  inevit¬ 
able  result  of  legislation  for  the  special  benefit  of 
a  few,  at  the  direct  expense  of  the  many.  A  free 
trader  at  heart,  a  confessed  free  trader  in  public 
print — as  any  man  can  plainly  read  between  his 
shrewdly  worded  lines — he  has  yet  devoted  all  his 
arts  and  cunning  to  confusing  the  minds  of  the 
American  people  and  committing  their  represent¬ 
atives  to  precisely  that  political  policy  and  Pro¬ 
tection  legislation  which  would  put  most  money 
into  his  own  pocket.  James  G.  Blaine,  “Pig 
Iron”  Kelley,  and  William  McKinley  loom  large 
in  popular  fancy  as  the  great  apostles  of  Protec¬ 
tion  ;  but  in  naked  truth  from  the  hour  the  tariff 
question  became  a  political  issue- in  1880,  Car¬ 
negie  has  been  the  active,  scheming,  and  resource¬ 
ful  leader  of  them  all.  The  intimate  and  confiden¬ 
tial  friend  of  Blaine,  the  watchful  and  designing 
counsellor  of  Kelley,  McKinley,  and  all  the  lesser 
leaders  of  the  party,  Carnegie  has  inspired  and 
directed  every  move  that  has  been  made.  Fame 
lured  the  politicians,  but  it  is  insatiate  greed  for 
millions  that  has  kept  the  wily  little  Scot  steadily 
to  his  work  ever  since  our  burden  of  war  taxes 
gave  him  his  golden  opportunity. 

FiConomists,  free  trade  writers  and  college  pro- 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


17 


fessors  are  fond  of  boasting  that  Protection  is 
without  a  literature — that  all  the  great  authorities 
upon  political  economy  repudiate  the  theory, 
demonstrate  its  fallacy,  and  spurn  to  give  it  any 
extended  treatment.  This  is  true  enough— so 
true  that  I  never  yet  met  a  believer  in  Protection 
who  does  not  in  some  form  drop  the  familiar  re¬ 
mark  “  Oh,  free  trade  is  all  right  in  theory;  but 
it  won’t  work  in  practice.  ’  ’ 

But  Carnegie  has  filled  the  gap  in  Protection 
“literature.” 

I  have  been  a  newspaper  man  all  my  life, 
and  I  have  studied  the  literature  of  free  trade 
with  absorbing  interest.  But  in  all  my  reading  I 
never  yet  found  any  free  trade  writing  which  ap¬ 
proaches  what  Carnegie  has  voiced  and  penned  in 
advocacy  of  Protection — in  point  of  winning 
plausibility,  shrewd  qualification  of  definite  pro¬ 
posals,  generous  praise  of  Cobden,  Bright  and 
Yilliers,  artful  recognition  of  the  priceless  public 
services  of  William  L.  Wilson,  and  positive 
power  in  appealing  to  the  pocket  interest  and  pa¬ 
triotism  of  intelligent  men  who  are  unfamiliar 
with  European  conditions  and  untrained  in  eco¬ 
nomic  thought,  but  who  influence  the  greatest 
possible  number  of  votes.  His  work  has  taken 
every  possible  form;  and  for  thirty  years  past 
the  “  personal  ”  letter  and  the  timely  newspaper 
interview  have  been  his  chief  dependence.  But 
enough  of  his  writing  has  now  been  collected  in 
book  form  to  clearly  show  his  artfulness ;  and  if 
those  who  see  through  the  man  and  his  methods , 
will  simply  spend  an  hour  at  some  library  in  read¬ 
ing  “  The  Empire  of  Business,”— particularly 


18 


JEFFEBSONIAN  DEMOCKACY. 


the  chapter  on  ‘  ‘  Steel  Manufacture  in  the  United 
States,”  and  the  three  closing  chapters— they  will 
understand,  clearly  enough,  why  millions  of  clear¬ 
headed  men  in  America  are  deluded  with  the  be¬ 
lief  that  Protection  has  built-up  our  great  indus¬ 
tries. 

Everybody  knows  that  Free  Trade  made  Brit¬ 
ain  the  foremost  manufacturing  nation  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  We  also  know  that  Free 
Trade  among  the  States  is  the  inestimable  boon 
which  has  assured  us  first  place  for  the  twentieth 
century — precisely  as  Free  Trade  among  her 
numerous  States  has  enriched  Germany  and 
given  her  the  proud  place  she  has  won  since  1871. 
Free  Trade,  in  ultimate  fact,  is  the  only  natural, 
logical,  just— and  hence  profitable— policy  for  ev¬ 
ery  nation  under  the  sun.  Carnegie  knows  this ; 
and  in  my  tariff  chapter  1  shall  quote  him  in 
proof  of  it.  But  Carnegie  has  had  a  pocket  inter¬ 
est  in  preaching  Protection  for  America;  and, 
with  that  central  fact  clearly  in  mind ,  any  intelli¬ 
gent  reader  can  now  both  understand  and  accu¬ 
rately  estimate  the  cunning  little  Scot  by  simply 
studying  his  writings. 

“Oh,  that  mine  adversary  had  written  a  book!” 

A  great  manufacturer  and  employer  himself, 
and  always  assuming  to  speak  disinterestedly  for 
that  important  class,  he  has  ever  been  in  position 
to  exert  great  influence ;  and  he  has  used  that  in¬ 
fluence  with  a  dash  and  skill  unparalleled  in  effec¬ 
tive  results.  By  timely  and  strikingly  worded 
newspaper  interviews— often  cabled  from  his  es¬ 
tates  in  Britain  to  make  them  doubly  impressive ; 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


19 


by  shrewdly  written  articles  published  in  both 
British  and  American  magazines— wherever  they 
would  have  most  telling  effect;  by  hundreds  of 
personal  letters  to  members  of  the  Cabinet  and  to 
leaders  in  Congress— always  carefully  marked 
‘  ‘  confidential  ’  ’  that  he  might  not  be  betrayed  as 
the  moving  force ;  by  frequent  visits  and  impres¬ 
sive  conferences  at  Washington;  by  quiet  little 
dinner  parties  upon  all  opportune  occasions ;  and 
always  by  heavy  contributions  to  the  campaign 
funds— these  have  been  the  methods  of  a  master¬ 
mind  in  managing  the  most  formidable  and  most 
prodigiously  profitable  political  machine  in  re¬ 
corded  history. 

“Aristocracies  are  infinitely  more  expert  in  the  science  of 
legislation  than  democracies  ever  can  be.  They  are  possessed 
of  a  self-control  which  protects  them  from  the  errors  of  a  tem¬ 
porary  excitement;  and  they  form  lasting  designs  which  they 
mature  with  the  assistance  of  favorable  opportunities.” 

'  —M.  de  Tocqueville. 

“  Triumphant  Democracy  ”  in  book  form  em¬ 
bodies  Mr.  Carnegie’s  patriotic  professions;  and 
libraries  galore— to  perpetuate  his  name  forever 
at  public  expense— give  the  measure  of  his  phil¬ 
anthropic  concern  for  the  poor,  the  lowly,  and  the 
helpless.  But  alien  by  birth,  alien  through  inborn 
sympathy,  alien  in  the  choice  of  Skibo  Castle  as 
his  favorite  residence,  alien  in  his  Lord  Rector¬ 
ship  of  St.  Andrew’s  University,  Edinburgh, 
alien  in  his  Presidency  of  the  British  Institute  of 
Iron  and  Steel  Manufactures,  and  alien  in  his 
hateful  pretense  of  American  citizenship,— he  has 
simply  used,  abused,  and  tyrannously  taxed  the 


20 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


American  people  to  enrich  himself  beyond  the 
dreams  of  his  own  avarice. 

“Oh,  that  mine  adversary  had  written  a  book!” 

And  fortunately  for  “  the  plain  people  99  for 
whom  Lincoln  lived  and  died;  fortunately  for  the 
cause  of  equality  before  the  law,  this  arch-enemy 
of  Democracy  has  written  several  books !  But  I 
fancy  he  will  think  twice  before  he  writes  any 
more  about  “  Democracy and  when  the  histor¬ 
ians  of  the  future  study  his  books  and  contem¬ 
plate  his  liberality  in  libraries— erected  to  per¬ 
petuate  his  name  forever  by  taxing  the  people — I 
think  they  will  be  prompted  to  go  further  and 
pry  out  the  newspaper  records  of  how  he  fled 
home  to  Scotland  and  made  his  managing  part¬ 
ner,  Mr.  Frick,  the  catspaw  and  victim  of  that 
frightful  Homestead  strike — following  closely 
upon  the  McKinley  bill,  which  injured  Carnegie’s 
pocket  interest.  And  then  I  know  they  will  study 
the  court  records  of  that  famous  suit  in  which  he 
sought,  desperately  but  vainly,  to  deprive  that 
same  managing  partner,  Mr.  Frick,  of  millions  of 
money. 

I  am  entirely  sure,  also,  that  the  historians  will 
have  very  much  to  say  of  the  strategy  and  tactics 
Carnegie  employed  to  prepare  the  way  for  the 
formation  of  the  Steel  Trust — first,  by  inspiring 
and  badgering  his  partners  with  boasts  of  what 
he  could  do  with  the  properties  on  the  London 
Stock  Exchange ;  and  then  by  threatening,  alarm¬ 
ing,  and  bull-dozing  his  competitors  into  forming 
it. 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


21 


“It  was  the  determination  of  the  Carnegie  Company  to  build 
extensive  works  at  Conneaut,  duplicating  the  existing  works  of 
other  companies,  and  the  certainty  that  these  companies  would 
be  compelled  to  duplicate  some  of  the  Carnegie  mills,  that  pre¬ 
cipitated  the  formation  of  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation.” 

■  —New  York  Journal  of  Commerce. 

I  am  also  sure  that  history’s  eager  eyes  will  pry 
out  the  masterful  legal  argument  submitted  to  the 
Court  by  Mr.  Edward  B.  Whitney,  of  New  York, 
in  the  famously  ineffectual  injunction  suit  to  stop 
the  conversion  of  $200,000,000  of  preferred  stock 
into  $250,000,000  of  second  mortgage  bonds— 
with  an  incidental  commission  of  $10,000,000  to 
J.  P.  Morgan  &  Co. ;  and  there  they  will  find  these 
statements : 

“We  have,  however,  one  item  of  valuation  which  is  clear 
enough  to  settle  this  case,  and  that  is  the  valuation  of  the 
properties  of  the  Carnegie  Steel  Company.  It  is  admitted  that 
the  gross  assets  of  that  company  were  valued  upon  its  books 
on  December  31,  1899,  at  about  $98,000,000,  and  its  net  assets 
at  $75,610,104.06.  It  is  not  claimed  that  the  properties  subse¬ 
quently  acquired  by  that  company  and  by  its  successor,  the 
Carnegie  Company,  were  worth  more  than  $50,000,000.  It  is 
admitted  that  these  assets  were  turned  over  by  the  Carnegie 
Company  to  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  at  a  valuation  of 
$492,556,100.  Here  is  an  overvaluation  of  $344,000,000  on  the 
single  item  of  the  Carnegie  Company,  and  it  will  be  remembered 
that  the  Carnegie  Company  got  the  best  end  of  the  transaction, 
since  its  share  included  the  entire  issue  of  first  mortgage  bonds. 

The  brief  goes  on  to  say  that  “naturally,  a  determined  effort 
was  made  by  the  defendants  in  this  suit  to  show  that  the  book 
values  were  not  the  full,  fair  and  accurate  values  of  the  Carnegie 
assets  on  December  31,  1899. 

“What,  then,  were  these  book  values?  Were  they  fictitious 
undervaluations,  mere  statements  of  actual  cost  at  a  time  when 
values  bore  no  relation  to  the  values  of  December  31,  1899,  oi 


22 


JEFFERSON  IAN  DEMOCRACY. 


were  they  full,  fair  and  accurate  valuations  at  that  date?  We 
have  the  positive  oath  to  the  latter  effect.  They  (Carnegie  and 
others)  join  in  testifying  as  follows: 

“  ‘We  aver  that  the  valuation  of  the  assets  as  shown  on  said 
books  and  balance  sheets  is  a  full,  fair  and  accurate  valuation 
of  the  same,  and  that  there  has  not  been  omitted  from  such  books 
and  balance  sheets  any  assets  which  should  properly  find  a 
place  therein.  ’  .  .  .  ’ ’ 

Thus  we  see  Carnegie  the  uncovered  creator 
and  chief  beneficiary  of  the  Steel  Trust, — holding 
a  first  mortgage  for  hundreds  of  millions  on  all 
the  property  of  his  competitors,  as  well  as  his 
own  property !  And  this  he  has  done  while  warn¬ 
ing  investors  and  the  public— before  the  event  in 
the  Century  Magazine  and  after  the  event  in  his 
latest  book, — in  the  following  unmistakable 
words : 

“It  is  not  long  since  trusts  first  made  their  appearance,  and 
already  many  have  disappeared.  Many  still  existing  are  being 
assailed,  the  names  of  which  will  readily  occur  to  our  readers. 
Only  a  few  survive  to-day,  and  none  have  secured  the  coveted 
monopoly.  Most  of  the  metals  and  many  of  the  staple  articles 
have  been  formed  into  trusts,  which,  although  yet  living,  are 
rapidly  being  attacked  to  their  final  destruction.  The  press 
used  to  tell  every  morning  of  the  organization  of  some  trust 
or  other,  and  even  to-day  we  will  hear  of  proposed  additions  to 
the  list  of  these  attempted  gigantic  monopolies,  which  enjoy  a 
brief  ephemeral  existence. 

“Already  the  ghosts  of  numerous  departed  trusts  which  aimed 
at  monopolies  have  marched  across  the  stage  of  human  affairs, 
each  pointing  to  its  fatal  wound,  inflicted  by  that  great  cor¬ 
rective,  competition.  Like  the  ghosts  of  Macbeth’s  victims, 
the  line  promises  to  stretch  longer  and  longer,  and  also  like 

those  phantoms  of  the  brain,  they  ‘come  like  shadows,  so  de¬ 
part.  ’ 


1  The  earth  hath  bubbles  as  the  water  hath, 
And  these  are  of  them.  ’ 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


23 


“The  only  people  who  have  reason  to  fear  trusts  are  those 
who  trust  them  .  .  .  those  foolish  enough  to  go  into  them.  ’  ’ 

One  brave  NO  from  Mr.  Carnegie  would  have 
made  the  Steel  Trust  impossible— as  other  Trusts 
have  been  made  impossible  in  both  America  and 
England.  But  he  had  schemed,  early  and  late, 
long  and  tirelessly,  to  get  his  grip  on  surplus  mil¬ 
lions  wherewith  to  buy  immortal  6 1  fame  ’  ’ ;  and, 
alas,  he  took  the  short  cut —regardless  of  conse¬ 
quences  to  others! 

“O  wad  some  power  the  giftie  gie  us, 

To  see  oursels  as  others  see  us. 

It  wad  frae  mony  a  blunder  free  us 
And  foolish  notion.  ” 

—Robert  Burns . 

Mr.  Carnegie  is  fond  of  quoting  Shakespeare. 
But  I  think  the  evidence  is  clear  that  his  greedy 
eyes  have  overlooked  one  vital  penthrust  from  the 
immortal  bard,  which  I  now  commend  to  his  stu¬ 
dious  consideration— while  there  is  yet  time,  be¬ 
fore  the  final  summons  calls ! 

1 1  The  evil  that  men  do  lives  after  them ; 

The  good,  is  oft  interred  with  their  bones.  ’  ’ 

Yet  another  solemn  injunction— from  an  Au¬ 
thor  whom  Carnegie  never  quotes,  but  from 
whom  the  wisest  of  men  draw  their  noblest  in¬ 
spiration  : 

*  ‘  When  thou  doest  thine  alms,  do  not  sound  a 
trumpet  before  thee,  as  the  hypocrites  do  in 
the  synagogues  and  in  the  streets,  that  they 
may  have  glory  of  men.  ’  ’ 

Philanthropy  is  not  alone  admirable — it  is  im - 


24  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

peratively  necessary  in  these  days  of  high  Protec¬ 
tion,  frequent  panics,  increasing  pauperism,  and 
dinner-pail  politics.  Free  libraries,  free  univer¬ 
sities,  free  colleges,  free  hospitals,  free  summer 
homes,  and  free  food,  clothing,  and  fuel,  in  recur¬ 
ring  seasons  of  industrial  depression  and  dire 
distress— all  these  things  afford  Protection-fed 
and  monopoly-made  millionaires  large  opportu¬ 
nity  to  pose  as  princely  givers  and  noble  “  bene¬ 
factors  ”  of  mankind.  Precisely  the  same  thing 
happened  in  Rome.  Indeed,  the  patrician  nobles 
of  the  Augustan  era  threw  our  moneyed  “  aris¬ 
tocracy’  ’  quite  into  the  shade.  Mark  Antony, 
so  Mr.  Marion  Crawford  tells  us,  squandered  and 
gave  away  in  his  short  life-time  the  equivalent  of 
four  billions  ($4,000,000,000)  of  dollars!  And 
what  were  the  consequences  in  Rome?  Let  Dr. 
John  Fiske,  America’s  foremost  historian,  give 
answer : 

Historians  have  been  fond  of  showing  how  the  vitality  of 
the  whole  (Roman)  system  was  impaired  by  wholesale  slave- 
labor,  by  the  false  political  economy  which  taxes  all  for  the 
benefit  of  a  few,  by  the  debauching  view  of  civil  office  which 
regards  it  as  a  private  perquisite  and  not  as  public  trust,  and 
—worst  of  all,  perhaps— by  the  communistic  practice  of  feeding 
an  idle  proletariat  out  of  the  imperial  treasury.  The  names 

of  these  deadly  social  evils  are  not  unfamiliar  to  American 
ears. 

Your  nation  may  have  art,  poetry,  and  science,  all  the 
refinements  of  civilized  life,  all  the  comforts  and  safeguards 
that  human  ingenuity  can  devise ;  but  if  it  lose  the  spirit  of  per¬ 
sonal  and  local  independence,  it  is  doomed  and  deserves  its 
doom. 

The  gravest  dangers  are  those  which  present  themselves  in 
new  forms,  against  which  people  ’a  minds  have  not  yet  been  forti¬ 
fied  with  traditional  sentiments  and  phrases.  The  inherited  pre- 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


25 


datory  tendency  of  men  to  seize  upon  the  fruits  of  other  people  *s 
labor  is  still  very  strong,  and  while  we  have  nothing  more  to  fear 
from  kings,  we  may  yet  have  trouble  enough  from  commercial 
monopolies  and  favored  industries,  marching  to  the  polls  their 
hordes  of  bribed  retainers.  Well  indeed  has  it  been  said  that 
eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  liberty.  ’ 1 

We  are  not  in  Rome.  We  have  no  intention  of 
permitting  Roman  history  to  repeat  itself.  And 
it  is  just  about  time  for  aspiring  politicians,  in 
office  and  out  of  it,  to  realize  that  millions  of  free 
men  and  free  women  in  America,  who  spurn  char¬ 
ity,  who  buy  their  own  books,  who  do  their  own 
thinking,  and  who  are  quite  able  to  take  care  of 
themselves,  are  now  fully  alive  to  the  fact  that 
the  source  of  our  ills  is  too  much  Protection, 
too  much  Paternalism,  and  far  too  much  need  for 
Philanthropy  in  'wholesale  chunks  of  ill-gotten 
millions  which  are  absolutely  useless  to  the  givers. 
And  after  my  readers  have  followed  me  through 
later  chapters,  I  am  very  sure  that  many,  and  I 
trust  all  of  them,  will  agree  that  a  man  who 
preaches  the  virtue  of  poverty  for  other  people, 
while  pocketing  millions  for  himself  through  Pro¬ 
tection  legislation,  personifies  that  gangrene  of 
blind  greed  which  has  poisoned  American  politi¬ 
cal  life— precisely  as  it  first  poisoned  and  then 
destroyed  heathen  Rome. 

‘ 1  Glory  built 

On  selfish  principles,  is  shame  and  guilt.  ’  * 

—Cowper. 

And  of  Carnegie,  more  anon ! 


I  put  Rockefeller  second  in  rank,  because  the 
Trusts  have  followed  Protection  as  darkness  fol- 


26  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

lows  day — Because  we  have  Havemeyer’s  word 
for  it  that  ‘  ‘  the  Tariff  is  the  Mother  of  Trusts  ’ 1 
—Because  Bockefeller  has  taught,  by  precept  and 
example,  that  combinations  4  hare  a  necessity  ” 
—Because  the  Trust  is  the  one  needful  device 
which  has  enabled  the  Protection  promoters  to 
stagger  the  world  with  the  magnitude  of  their 
godless  gain,  to  spread  industrial  depression  and 
dread  of  the  future  throughout  all  Europe,  and  to 
make  thoughtful  men  the  world  over  stop  and 
wonder  whether  our  free  institutions  will  be  equal 
to  the  strain. 

And  of  all  living  men  this  silent,  secretive,  and 
masterful  organizer  of  monopoly  is  the  spectral 
genius  of  this  Trust-threatened  age.  Witness 
here  the  pen-picture  drawn  by  a  daring  young 
woman,  now  steadily  at  work:* 

*  ‘  The  ability  with  which  he  made  the  smallest  bargain  fur¬ 
nishes  topics  to  Cleveland  story-tellers  to-day.  Low-voiced,  soft- 
footed,  humble,  knowing  every  point  in  every  man’s  business,  he 
never  tired  until  he  got  his  wares  at  the  lowest  possible  figure. 

1  J ohn  always  got  the  best  of  the  bargain,  ’  old  men  tell  you  in 
Cleveland  to-day,  and  they  wince  though  they  laugh  in  telling  it. 

1  Smooth, ;  ‘  a  savy  fellow,  ’  is  their  description  of  him.  To  drive 
a  good  bargain  was  the  joy  of  his  life.  ‘The  only  time  I  ever 
saw  John  Rockefeller  enthusiastic,’  a  man  told  the  writer  once, 
‘was  when  a  report  came  in  from  the  Creek  that  his  buyer  had 
secured  a  cargo  of  oil  at  a  figure  much  below  the  market  price. 
He  bounded  from  his  chair  with  a  shout  of  joy,  danced  up  and 
down,  hugged  me,  threw  up  his  hat,  acted  so  like  a  madman  that 
I  have  never  forgotten  it.  ’  ” 

The  fruitful  parent  of  all  the  Trusts  that  have 
ever  yet  been  formed,  and  are  still  forming — is 
the  Standard  Oil  Company.  That  is  not  only  the 


•Ida  M.  Tarbell,  in  McClure’s  Magazine. 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


27 


oldest  of  them  all,  but  it  is  the  most  powerful  ag¬ 
gregation  of  capital  and  business  capacity  ever 
drawn  together  in  any  line  of  industry  outside 
railway  operations.  Marvellous  in  the  perfection 
of  its  organization,  invincible  in  its  strength,  as¬ 
tonishing  in  its  boasted  economies  of  production, 
and  more  astonishing  in  the  pretended  low  prices 
at  which  its  products  are  marketed— it  is  the  one 
model  from  which  every  argument  in  support  of 
the  Trust  idea  has  been  drawn.  And  so  often  and 
so  furiously  has  it  been  attacked  by  press  and  pul¬ 
pit,  by  Congress,  by  State  legislatures,  and  by  re¬ 
formers  of  every  kind  and  degree,  that  many  very 
able  men  have  come  to  look  upon  it  as  a  thing 
which  must  endure  because  of  the  essential  sound¬ 
ness  of  the  principles  upon  which  it  is  builded. 

But  the  secrets  of  its  strength  are  perfectly  ob¬ 
vious  to  men  trained  in  economic  thought;  its 
astonishing  success  carries  fascination  only  for 
minds  “more  intent  upon  private  gain  than  pub¬ 
lic  policy ;  ’  ’  and  now  we  shall  see,  gaunt  and  bare, 
the  very  bone  structure  of  the  wonder-working 
monopoly. 

In  the  first  place,  crude  petroleum  is  a  natural 
product.  The  supply  is  limited  rigidly  by  the 
flow  from  known  oil  fields — while  the  demand  is 
ivithout  limit ,  if  the  price  be  made  low  enough  to 
induce  consumption.  The  simple  problem  with 
which  Rockefeller  and  his  associates  have  to  deal, 
therefore,  is  to  get  control  in  each  new  oil  field  as 
it  develops— To  get  hold  of  the  supply  at  any 
cost ;  and  then  compensate  themselves  by  arbi¬ 
trarily  fixing  the  prices  that  the  public  must  pay. 
In  other  words,  “to  corner  oil”— which  is  pre- 


28 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


cisely  what  they  have  been  doing  systematically, 
and  by  devious  and  shameless  methods,  for  near¬ 
ly  thirty  years. 

Beyond  this,  both  crude  and  refined  oil  are 
large  in  bulk,  and  their  conveyance  from  the  oil 
fields  to  various  points  of  manufacture,  and  then 
again  to  consumers  in  every  part  of  the  world, 
makes  the  item  of  transportation  enormously  im¬ 
portant— so  important  in  fact,  that,  having  com¬ 
mand  of  this  enormous  volume  of  freight,  they 
were  for  many  years  in  position  to  actually  dic¬ 
tate  terms  to  competing  railway  lines.  The  sums 
thus  saved  through  secret  1 ‘ rebates’ ’  and  “draw¬ 
backs”  on  their  own  shipments — and  the  ship¬ 
ments  of  their  competitors  in  business  as  well — 
mount  into  millions  of  dollars,  and  furnish  one  of 
the  most  scandalous  chapters  in  American  rail¬ 
way  history. 

But  murder  will  out.  The  sensation  caused  a 
few  years  ago  by  the  public  disclosure  of  this  re¬ 
bate  system,  forced  them  to  abandon  it  as  a  means 
of  crushing  “the  oil  producer — the  man  to  whom 
the  world  owes  the  business,”  as  old  Tom  Scott 
graphically  and  truthfully  described  the  heroic 
characters,  past  and  present,  who  have  faced 
every  hardship,  have  assumed  every  risk,  and 
have  actually  done,  and  are  still  doing ,  the  pio¬ 
neer  work  necessary  to  increase  this  supply  of 
Nature’s  generous  bounty. 

And  now  let  judges,  legislators,  prosecuting 
attorneys,  preachers,  teachers,  newspaper  edi¬ 
tors,  and  reformers,  one  and  all,  take  due  note  of 
this  speaking  piece  of  testimony  from  Rockefeller 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


29 


himself — at  last  in  cold  print! —  before  the  Indus¬ 
trial  Commission,  in  defense  of  “industrial  com¬ 
binations.  7 1 

“We  soon  discovered  as  the  business  grew  that  the  primary 
method  of  transporting  oil  in  barrels  could  not  last.  The  pack¬ 
age  often  cost  more  than  the  contents,  and  the  forests  of  the 
country  were  not  sufficient  to  supply  the  material  for  an  extended 
length  of  time.  Hence  we  devoted  attention  to  other  methods  of 
transportation,  adopted  the  pipe  line  system,  and  found  capital 
for  pipe  line  construction  equal  to  the  necessities  of  the  business. 
To  operate  pipe  lines  required  franchises  from  States  in  which 
they  were  located,  and  consequently  corporations  in  those  States, 
just  as  railroads  running  through  different  States  are  forced  to 
operate  under  separate  charters.  To  perfect  the  pipe  line  system 
of  transportation  required  in  the  neighborhood  of  $50,000  000  of 
capital.  This  could  not  be  obtained  or  maintained  without  in¬ 
dustrial  combination. 

‘ 1  The  entire  oil  business  is  dependent  upon  this  pipe  line  sys¬ 
tem.  Without  it  every  well  would  be  shut  down,  every  foreign 
market  would  be  closed  to  us.  The  pipe  line  system  required 
other  improvements,  such  as  tank  cars  upon  railways,  and  finally 
the  tank  steamer.  Capital  had  to  be  furnished  for  them,  and 
corporations  created  to  own  and  operate  them.  Every  step  taken 
was  necessary  in  the  business  if  it  was  to  be  properly  developed. 1  ’ 

There  we  have  the  secret,  clearly  exposed !  The 
people  have  granted  these  franchises.  The  people 
have  authorized  the  building  of  these  pipe  lines 
over  private  property.  The  people  have  permit¬ 
ted  these  men  to  monopolize,  to  their  exclusive 
use,  this  marvellous  means  of  cheap  transporta¬ 
tion.  In  short,  it  is  the  representatives  of  the 
people  in  State  legislatures  (especially  in  Penn¬ 
sylvania,  where  Quay  presides)  who  have  placed 
the  oil  producers  and  the  oil  consumers  at  the 
mercy  of  these  multi-millionaires ! 

Americans  are  fond  of  boasting  our  many 


30  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

thousands  of  miles  of  railroads,  which  we  have 
builded  since  the  Civil  War;  and  public-spirited 
citizens,  for  a  generation  past,  have  been  active 
and  eager  in  demanding  that  the  people  shall  en¬ 
joy  the  benefits  of  fair  and  equal  rates  for  rail¬ 
road  transportation.  As  a  result,  we  created  the 
Inter-State  Commerce  Commission  many  years 
ago ;  and  we  are  wide-awake  to  the  necessity  for 
regulating  freight  rates.  But  how  many  men  are 
awake  to  the  significance,  the  extent,  and  the 
priceless  value  of  this  newer  means  of  cheap 
transportation  for  petroleum  oill  So  few  are 
awake,  that  the  Standard  Oil  Company  has  en¬ 
riched  its  beneficiaries  beyond  their  wildest 
dreams.  And  they  have  become  so  rich  that  al¬ 
ready  they  are  reaching  out,  in  ignorant  greed,  to 
control  nothing  less  than  our  national  govern¬ 
ment  through  the  United  States  Senate.  But  for 
this  insufferable  and  idle  scheme,  let  us  await  the 
next  chapter. 

The  many  thousands  of  miles  of  pipe  line  trans¬ 
portation  already  in  existence,  and  now  planned 
and  building,  may  be  inferred  from  the  following 
item  which  I  clip  from  the  New  York  Herald  as  I 
write : 

It  is  learned  that  the  Standard  Oil  Company  has  made  plans 
for  the  construction  of  eight  hundred  miles  of  new  pipe  lines  for 
the  transmission  of  oil.  Part  of  this  great  construction  work  has 
been  completed;  some  in  West  Virginia,  Ohio,  and  in  California. 
The  work  is  being  done  by  subsidiary  companies.  According  to 
the  Chronicle  several  of  these  pipe  lines  are  of  unusual  import¬ 
ance. 

The  Cumberland  Pipe  Line  Company  has  completed  a  pipe 
line  of  six-inch  pipe  from  Parkersburg,  W.  Va.,  to  Manchester, 
London,  and  Somerset  in  eastern  Kentucky,  and  branch  lines 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


31 


leading  into  nearby  oil  fields.  The  plans  include  the  construc¬ 
tion  of  three  hundred  and  fifteen  miles  of  pipe  in  Kentucky,  to 
cost  $1,000,000. 

“  Under  tHe  charter  of  the  East  Ohio  Gas  Company,  a  pipe 
line  extending  from  the  West  Virginia  oil  fields  to  Cleveland, 
about  two  hundred  miles  long,  has  been  constructed.  In  Cali¬ 
fornia,  the  Pacific  Coast  Oil  Company,  another  subsidiary,  is  now 
finishing  278  miles  of  eight  inch  pipe,  which  will  carry  oil  from 
the  great  Kern  fields  to  San  Francisco. 

“  The  Chronicle  also  says  that  the  Standard  Oil  Company  now 
controls  more  than  one-half  of  the  fine  burning  oil  output  of  the 
country.  ’ ’ 

Some  measure  of  the  enormous  profits  that  the 
beneficiaries  of  the  monopoly  are  drawing  from 
the  consumers  of  oil,  may  be  gathered  from  the 
following  statement  of  dividends  paid,  which  I 
also  clip  from  the  Neiv  York  Herald  as  I  write — 
while  the  people  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard  cities 
are  suffering  for  lack  of  coal,  while  it  is 
selling  at  retail  for  double  and  treble  the 
normal  price,  while  the  Salvation  Army  is 
distributing  asbestos  bricks  saturated  with  oil, 
and  while  platoons  of  policemen  are  needed  at  the 
coal  yards  to  keep  long  lines  of  men,  women,  and 
children,  in  order  as  they  struggle  and  wait  for 
an  opportunity  to  buy,  and  themselves  carry  off, 
a  scuttle,  a  bag,  a  pail,  or  a  baby  carriage  filled 
with  coal : 

STANDARD  OIL ’S  GREAT  DIVIDENDS. 


1897  .  $33,000,000 

1898  .  30,000,000 

1899  .  33,000,000 

1900  .  48,000,000 


32 


JEFFERSONIAlN  DEMOCRACY. 


1901  . 

1902 — 1st  quarter 
2d  quarter 
3d  quarter 
4th  quarter 


.  $48,000,000 

$20,000,000 

10,000,000 

5,000,000 

10,000,000  45,000,000 


Total  for  last  six  years .  $237,000,000 

On  a  capital  stock  of .  $100,000,000 


Oil  has  gone  up  a  cent  or  more  a  gallon.  The  scarcity  of  coal 
drove  the  people  to  using  gas  stoves  in  increasing  quantities. 
Similarly  the  sale  of  oil  stoves  increased  tremendously  last  fall 
and  this  winter.  Then  the  manufacturers  were  unable  to  deliver 
gas  stoves  in  sufficient  quantity  to  meet  the  fast  growing  demand, 
and  simultaneously  the  Standard  Oil  Company  came  forward 
with  a  new  wickless  burner  and  disposed  of  thousands  of  addi¬ 
tional  oil  stoves  and  heaters. 

Then  the  experiment  of  burning  oil  for  fuel  on  locomotives  and 
steamships  turned  out  successfully.  The  Southern  Pacific  Rail¬ 
way,  the  Hawaiian  Steamship  Company  and  a  company  running 
steamers  from  Texas  to  New  York  followed  suit,  and  other  cus¬ 
tomers  heretofore  not  reached  made  a  new  market. 

Two  weeks  ago  the  Standard  Oil  Company  advanced  the  price 
to  jobbers  a  cent  a  gallon.  This  means  an  increase  in  income  of 
$8,000,000  annually  on  sales  in  the  United  States  alone,  as  the 
Oil  Trust  controls  80  per  cent,  of  all  the  petroleum  produced  in 
this  country. 

The  Standard  Oil  Company  dividends  for  this  year  amount  to 
$45,000,000,  or  45  per  cent.,  on  a  capital  of  $100,000,000.  The 
quarterly  dividends  have  been  20,  10,  5  and  10  per  cent,  respec¬ 
tively.  On  December  15  the  dividends  for  the  last  quarter  will 
be  paid.  Last  year,  and  in  1900  also,  the  dividends  amounted  to 
48  per  cent.,  but  this  year  an  enormous  sum  has  been  expended  in 
“betterments, ”  that  is,  buying  new  properties  in  Texas  and  else¬ 
where  and  in  building  new  vessels  for  the  carrying  trade. 

Thus  the  latest  increase  in  cost  to  local  consumers  may  be  un¬ 
derstood  as  tending  to  equalize  the  returns  to  the  stockholders  to 
the  normal  figures  of  1901  and  1900.  To  the  average  householder 
it  means  that  a  gallon  of  kerosene  oil  will  cost  from  twelve  to 
thirteen  and  a  half  cents  a  gallon  hereafter,  unless  the  oil  mag¬ 
nates  should  decide  upon  another  squeeze. 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


33 


At  one  of  the  largest  department  stores,  where  two  thousand 
oil  stoves  were  sold  last  month  it  was  said  yesterday  that  they 
were  paying  thirteen  and  a  half  cents  a  gallon  for  oil  by  the  bar¬ 
rel.  In  Harlem  grocers  were  selling  a  gallon  at  twelve  cents  in 
some  places  and  twelve  and  a  half  cents  in  other  places. 

— New  York  Herald ,  Dec.  13,  1902. 

Two  weeks  later  yet  another  advance  of  one 
cent  per  gallon  was  exacted,  making  a  total  ad¬ 
vance  of  four  cents.  Thus  we  see  the  realism  of 
that  philosophy  of  modern  business  management 
which  enables  our  first  and  greatest  combination 
to  ‘ 6 reduce  prices  to  the  consumer.”  And  just 
how  they  captured  the  Texas  oil  field  is  graphi¬ 
cally  indicated  by  these  clippings  from  the  New 
York  American— whose  young  editor,  though  be¬ 
fogged  by  the  theory  of  “government  owner¬ 
ship,’ ?  is  yet  splendidly  fearless  in  publishing  the 
facts : 

ROCKEFELLER  GETS  TEXAS  OIL  FIELDS. 

Bought  up  all  of  the  wharves  and  shipping  facilities  of  Port 
Arthur,  the  nearest  deep-water  port  to  the  famous  fields. 

Purchased  ninety  thousand  acres  of  land,  surrounding  Port 
Arthur. 

Bought  all  the  railroads  leading  from  the  Beaumont  fields  to 
Port  Arthur. 

Cut  off  the  Beaumont  fields  from  the  oil  market,  and  placed  it 
in  a  position  to  make  terms  with  Standard  Oil. 

Bought  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  interests  in  the  Beaumont  Oil 
Fields,  besides  acquiring  a  vast  amount  of  territory  around  Beau¬ 
mont,  including  the  Sour  Lake  oil  wells. 

Another  feeler  is  reaching  toward  the  Bakersfield  oil  fields  in 
California. 

Fuel  oil  forced  up  $1  a  barrel. 

Standard  Oil  forced  up  4c.  a  gallon. 

Standard  stock  sent  up  $36  a  share. 

THE  ROCKEFELLER  METHOD. 

“You  take  the  risk;  we  do  the  rest,”  is  Rockefeller’s  motto, 


34 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


and  he  has  never  departed  from  it  since  the  first  day  of  the 
Standard  Oil  business.  He  has  stood  by  while  others  expended 
millions  developing  oil  fields.  Naturally,  most  of  the  money  thus 
expended  has  been  lost  in  unprofitable  ventures.  Rockefeller 
has  always  ignored  the  companies  thac  failed,  and  seized  the 
successes. 

John  M.  Wright,  president  of  the  Peerless,  expressed  the  ut¬ 
most  satisfaction  at  the  result  of  the  negotiations  with  the 
Standard  Oil  people. 

Mr.  Wright  was  asked  if  the  Standard  Oil  Company  intends  to 
control  the  oil  product  of  California. 

“I  have  no  doubt/’  he  answered,  “that  the  Standard  intends 
to  control  not  only  the  oil  product  of  California,  but  the  oil 
business  of  the  United  States.  That  they  can  accomplish  this 
purpose  is  unquestionable.  They  have  no  competition  and  they 
can  have  no  opposition.  Owners  of  oil  wells  had  to  sell,  and  the 
Standard  Oil  Company  was  the  only  market  available.  ’  ’ 

— New  York  American,  Dec.  29,  1902. 

What  of  the  dividends  from  the  subsidiary 
companies,  and  the  outside  investments  sprung' 
from  the  parent  monopoly?  That  will  make  a 
most  interesting  subject  of  inquiry  for  a  Congres¬ 
sional  committee  of  investigation ;  and  I  fancy  the 
newspapers  will  give  us  some  racy  reading  when 
the  good  work  begins. 

And  what  is  the  remedy? 

Open  their  books,  as  we  long  ago  learned  the 
necessity  for  opening  the  books  of  the  banks  and 
insurance  companies — 

Open  their  books,  as  we  have  been  vainly  trying 
for  twenty  years  past  to  make  the  railway  monop¬ 
olists  open  their  books— 

Open  their  books,  that  the  courageous  and  inde¬ 
pendent  oil  producers  may  make  sure  of  enjoying 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


35 


precisely  the  same  rates  of  pipe-line  transporta¬ 
tion  that  the  monopolists  have  long  enjoyed  ex¬ 
clusively— 

Open  their  books,  that  expert  oil  refiners,  with 
ample  capital  and  eager  readiness  for  the  busi¬ 
ness,  may  prove  that  oil  for  lighting  and  heating 
the  homes  of  the  people  can  be  sold  at  a  profit  for 
probably  half  the  price  the  monopolists  have  al¬ 
ways  exacted  — 

Open  their  books,  that  the  world  may  learn  that 
crude  petroleum  is  so  rich  a  bounty — is  composed 
of  so  many  valuable  elements — that  its  by-prod¬ 
ucts  alone  (naphtha,  gasoline,  paraffine,  vaseline, 
benzine,  etc.,  etc.)  have  been  yielding  handsome 
dividends  on  the  entire  cash  capital  of  the  com¬ 
pany  for  years  past — have  in  fact  becoirib  so  im¬ 
portant  and  profitable  that  oil  refining  would  still 
be  profitable  if  lamp  oil  were  given  away. 

Open  their  books,  that  men  of  business  may 
plainly  see  that  such  unheard-of  profits  are  un¬ 
known  to  legitimate  manufacturing  industry,  sub¬ 
ject  to  free  competition— 

Open  their  books,  that  deluded  converts  to  the 
‘  ‘  combination ’  ’  idea  may  now  have  proof  that  the 
baneful  teaching  of  these  wily  monopolists  is  di¬ 
rectly  responsible  for  the  whole  brood  of  stock- 
jobbing  schemes  and  ‘‘blind  pools”  which  have 
disgraced  Wall  Street  in  recent  years ;  which  have 
deceived  honest  investors;  which  have  brought 
discredit  upon  American  banking  interests ;  and 
which  are  now  crowding  the  courts  with  injunc¬ 
tion  suits,  damage  suits,  receiverships  and  bank¬ 
ruptcy  proceedings — 

Open  their  books,  that  patriots  and  freemen 


36 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


may  now  fully  realize  tlie  danger  of  permitting 
this  formidable  group  of  multi-millionaires  to  go 
on  with  their  work  of  monopolizing  copper  mines, 
iron  mines,  lead  mines,  coal  fields,  steamship 
lines,  railway  systems,  and  banking  facilities. 
F or  monopolize  them  all  they  surely  will ;  and  the 
millions  they  already  command,  with  the  combin¬ 
ations  they  have  formed  and  are  still  forming,  are 
the  effective  instruments  with  which  their  daring 
ends  will  be  compassed. 

But  enough.  I  have  laid  bare  the  very  bone 
structure  of  this  sin-breeding  monopoly.  I  have 
pointed  straight  to  the  corrective  remedy  which 
will  rob  it  of  all  its  power,  render  it  subservient  to 
the  public  need— and  in  the  process,  not  give  its 
managers  the  shadow  of  an  excuse  for  shutting 
down  even  one  of  its  factories  for  a  single  hour. 

And  if  there  be  those  who  see  the  pressing  need 
for  a  closer  study  of  the  subject,  let  me  pay  a  de¬ 
served  tribute  to  courageous  womanhood  by  ear¬ 
nestly  recommending  a  careful  reading  of  the  fas¬ 
cinating,  authentic,  and  heroically-written  history 
of  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  by  Miss  Ida  M. 
Tarbell,  lately  published  serially  in  McClure's 
Magazine. 


I  place  Morgan  third  in  rank,  because  it  is  only 
in  recent  years  that  he  has  loomed  large  in  the 
public  eye ;  and,  obviously,  his  function  as  finan¬ 
cier  of  “industrial  combinations,”  is  simply  the 
logical  outcome  of  the  teaching  and  preparatory 
work  of  the  other  men.  In  other  words,  Carnegie 
needed  and  used  his  high  credit  and  great  daring 
to  reap  from  the  investing  public  a  har- 


EULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


37 


vest  of  hundreds  of  millions  in  first  mort¬ 
gage  gold  fionds;  and  in  like  manner  Rocke¬ 
feller  still  needs  him  for  the  steady  work 
of  combining  railway  systems  and  steamship 
lines  with  our  great  stores  of  natural  wealth 
in  coal  mines,  iron  mines,  copper  mines,  and  lead 
mines — Nature’s  bounty  to  mankind!  Vain  of 
his  power  and  influence,  eager  for  supreme  lead¬ 
ership,  and  still  more  eager  for  the  hundreds  of 
millions  which  the  work  of  promotion  yields  him¬ 
self  and  his  partners,  Morgan  has  plunged  into 
“ industrials”  with  a  reckless  daring  which  stag¬ 
gers  the  level-headed  and  conservative  financiers 
of  both  America  and  Europe. 

In  his  personality  we  plainly  see  the  boldness 
and  daring  of  Hamilton,  the  financier ;  the  aristo¬ 
cratic  pride  of  Biddle,  the  hanker;  the  ages-old 
arrogance  of  wealth  and  power ;  and  blended  with 
these,  a  dashing  faculty  for  organization  and  co¬ 
ercion  which  he  renders  potent  and  quickly  effec¬ 
tive,  through  a  transparent  policy  of  wholesale 
liberality  to  both  victors  and  vanquished  in  the 
allotment  of  millions  of  heavily  watered  stock— 
which  he  straightway  markets  to  the  investing 
public ! 

And  it  is  because  he  is  straightforward,  blunt, 
and  bold ;  it  is  because  his  word  is  as  good  as  his 
bond  among  Wall  Street  bankers  and  promoters; 
it  is  because  his  followers  are  loyal  and  his  rivals 
ever  ready  to  treat  with  him;  and  especially  be¬ 
cause  he  lends  himself  and  his  high  credit  to  deep 
schemers  like  Carnegie  and  Rockefeller,  that  he  is 
to-day  one  of  the  most  demoralizing  forces  in 
American  public  life. 


38 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


For  we  must  not  forget  that  Wall  Street  now 
sits  supreme  over  the  management  and  market 
value  of  every  great  franchise  that  the  people 
have  granted  for  public  utilities— railroads, 
street  railways,  gas  and  electric  light  companies, 
water  works,  telegraph  and  telephone  rights,  min¬ 
ing  charters  for  coal,  iron,  copper,  lead  and  other 
necessities  of  the  people ;  and  in  these  latter  days, 
even  the  stocks  and  bonds  of  “infant  industries” 
which  since  the  war  have  been  so  tenderly  fos¬ 
tered  by  the  Morrill  bill,  the  McKinley  bill,  and 
the  Dingley  bill. 

We  must  not  forget  that  “community  of  inter¬ 
est”  is  the  magic  wand,  the  new-found  device, 
wherewith  these  mighty  millionaires,  these  prince¬ 
ly  patrons  of  libraries,  churches,  universities,  and 
hospitals,  are  to  harmonize  all  competing  inter¬ 
ests  in  the  conduct  of  these  vast  enterprises — to 
the  end,  as  we  are  told,  that  America  may  be  su¬ 
preme  on  land  and  sea,  and  that  “the  plain  peo¬ 
ple”  may  buy  cheaper,  live  better,  and  earn  high¬ 
er  wages  than  any  other  people  under  the  sun ! 

But  I,  for  one  at  least,  can  not  forget  that  in 
the  early  days  of  Republican  misrule,  when  Cred¬ 
it  Mobilier,  the  Star  Route  frauds,  and  the  Whis¬ 
key  Ring  were  the  sensations  of  the  day,  the  polite 
term  “community  of  interest”  was  then  phrased 
in  rough  and  ready  fashion  as  “the  cohesive  pow¬ 
er  of  public  plunder.” 

I  can  not  forget  that  it  was  Jim  Blaine  of 
Maine — Carnegie’s  intimate  friend — who  “cast 
an  anchor  to  windward”  and  barely  saved  Protec¬ 
tion  from  defeat  in  1880,  by  introducing  the  now- 
familiar  program  of  loudly  proclaiming  Prosper- 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


39 


ity,  of  savagely  threatening  the  people  with  an¬ 
other  panic,  and  of  trickily  foisting  upon  the  pub¬ 
lic  that  serviceable  subterfuge,  that  Blaine-like 
mockery  of  tariff  reform— Reciprocity ! 

I  freely  maintain  that  Protection  is  the  very 
basis  and  beginning  of  these  11  industrial  combina¬ 
tions”— That  Carnegie,  Rockefeller,  Morgan,  and 
their  imitators  on  a  lesser  scale,  have  simply  cap¬ 
italized  into  billions  of  interest-bearing  bonds 
and  dividend-carrying  shares  the  fabulous  profits 
which  Protection  makes  possible — And  that  all 
these  profits  are  drawn  straight  from  the  pockets 
of  the  American  people,  in  the  form  of  extortion¬ 
ate  prices  for  all  the  materials  of  home  manufac¬ 
ture,  and  burdensome  prices  for  all  the  necessa¬ 
ries  of  living  in  the  home. 

In  proof  of  this,  I  cite  the  enormous  advances 

in  the  prices  of  iron  and  steel,  of  tin  plate  and 
wire  nails,  of  lead  and  copper,  of  chemicals  and 
drugs,  of  hides  and  leather,  of  coal  and  coal  oil, 
of  beef  and  mutton,  of  woolens  and  dress-goods 

_ the  prices  of  every  material  that  enters  into 

home  manufacture,  as  well  as  household  con¬ 
sumption— the  prices  of  each  and  every  article 
controlled  by  a  Trust !  And  outrage  of  all  others 
assuredly  the  worst,  1  cite  the  sworn  testimony 
before  the  Industrial  Commission  as  to  the  low 
prices  at  which  these  same  combinations  sell  their 
products  to  foreign  manufacturers  and  foreign 
consumers ! 

I  refuse  to  forget  that  sworn  testimony  in  the 
courts  avers  that  a  fair  valuation  of  all  the  prop¬ 
erties  merged  into  the  Steel  Trust  would  be  $300,- 
000,000.  If  that  be  true,  then  its  stupendous 


40 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


capitalization  of  One  Billion  Four  Hundred  Mil¬ 
lions  of  Dollars  ($1,400,000,000)  gives  the  meas- 
ure  of  the  ‘‘watered-stock”  upon  which  American 
consumers  of  iron  and  steel  are  expected  to  pay 
interest  and  dividends.  And  its  widely  heralded 
net  profits,  now  averaging  One  Hundred  and  For¬ 
ty  Million  Dollars  per  annum  ($140,000,000), 
give  the  measure  of  the  extortionate  prices  that 
Americans  have  been  forced  to  pay  through  Pro¬ 
tection  legislation,  which  shuts  out  foreign  pro¬ 
ducers;  and  through  “restricted  production,” 
which  enabled  Morgan  to  boast  that  in  forming 
the  Steel  Trust  he  had  “saved”  $150,000,000  then 
about  to  be  expended  for  building  new  furnaces, 
new  mills,  and  new  factories  to  supply  the  in’- 
creased  demand. 

I  refuse  to  forget  that  when  this  stupendous 
volume  of  watered-stock  was  about  to  be  offered 
to  the  investing  public,  the  effective  criticism  and 
the  startling  facts  published  daily  in  the  New 
Yoik  papers  gravely  endangered  the  success  of 
the  mammoth  flotation.  Then  suddenly  a  flaming 
prospectus  appeared  as  an  advertisement  in  all 
the  critical  New  York  newspapers.  It  occupied 
column  after  column  of  space;  it  was  inserted  at 
lull  card  rates  with  no  discounts  or  rebates  asked ; 
and  day  after  day,  for  weeks  of  time,  it  ran  on 
until  forbid”  orders  from  J.  P.  Morgan  &  Co. 
bmall  wonder  that  the  criticism  ceased!  Small 
wonder  that  the  business  managers  of  these  news¬ 
papers  were  able  to  persuade  the  editors  that  in¬ 
vestors  in  Wall  Street  “industrials”  are,  or 
ought  to  be,  quite  able  to  take  care  of  themselves. 
Again,  when  the  recent  coal  strike  was  at  its 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


41 


crisis ;  when  the  people  of  the  Eastern  cities  were 
in  imminent  peril  of  a  coal  famine  in  winter; 
when  even  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  Nation  had 
appealed  vainly  to  the  coal  barons  to  grant  some 
slight  concession — then  it  was  that  Morgan  once 
more  made  Barnum-like  use  of  the  newspapers 
and  associated  press  despatches,  to  brazenly  an¬ 
nounce  that  he  had  placed  an  order  for  50,000  tons 
of  coal  in  England,  and  that  every  fleet  vessel  in 
the  new  shipping  combine  would  at  once  be  em¬ 
ployed  for  transporting  that  English  coal  to  New 
York.  Thus,  by  a  master-stroke  of  “  combina¬ 
tion’  ’  finance,  the  shares  of  the  Shipping  Trust 
were  to  be  popularized,  while  the  sturdy  miners 
were  to  be  starved  into  submission  1 

It  is  indeed  well  worthy  of  careful  note  by 
thinking  Americans  that  this  daring  promoter  of 
combinations  has  a  very  substantial  appreciation 
of  the  power  of  the  press  in  shaping  public  opin¬ 
ion— as  shown  by  his  ownership  of  a  great  pub¬ 
lishing  house  issuing  numerous  and  very  influen¬ 
tial  weekly  and  monthly  periodicals ;  as  shown  by 
his  financial  control  of  at  least  two  of  the  leading 
New  York  daily  papers;  and  as  shown  by  the 
rumor  that  himself  and  4 ‘ community-of ■ -interest” 
associates  are  the  real  purchasers  of  the  two  great 
newspaper  properties  which  recently  changed 
hands  in  Philadelphia. 

And  now,  reader,  take  careful  note ! 

For  here  is  where  I  want  thinking  men,  with 
the  money-making  faculty  and  the  rare  gift  of 
foresight,*  to  stop  short  in  the  mad  rush  for  mil¬ 
lions,  that  they  may  do  a  little  thinking  for  their 


42 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


children;  for  their  grandchildren;  and  for  the 
generations  of  American  freemen  who  are  to 
come  after  ns. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  this  spectacular 
work  of  recent  years  represents  the  central  pur¬ 
pose,  and  the  moving  ambition,  of  the  man  who 
has  been  aptly  described  as  our  Napoleon  of  Fi¬ 
nance.  No,  no;  Mr.  Morgan  is  facile  princeps  a 
railroad  financier.  It  was  in  the  reorganization 
of  bankrupted  railroad  properties  that  he  won  his 
spurs  and  garnered  his  first  millions.  The  work 
which  now  engages  his  best  energies,  his  highest 
powers,  and  all  the  influence  of  the  millions 
massed  behind  his  leadership,  is  that  of  combin¬ 
ing,  consolidating,  and  tightly  controlling  the 
great  railroad  systems  of  the  country !  The  Steel 
Trust,  the  Coal  Trust,  and  the  Shipping  Trust  are 
mere  feeders  and  outlets  for  the  main  scheme  of 
monopoly.  The  clear  purpose,  the  definite  aim, 
and  the  ceaseless  effort  of  himself  and  all  his  fol¬ 
lowers,  is  to  get  a  tight  grip  on  the  very  arteries 
of  the  Nation’s  commerce  and  industry — to  use 

THE  RAILROADS  FOR  CONTROLLING  OUR  PRINCIPAL 
MINING,  MANUFACTURING  AND  SHIPPING  INDUS¬ 
TRIES,  PRECISELY  AS  THE  STANDARD  OlL  CROWD  USE 
THE  PIPE  LINES. 

1 1  1901  I  heard  the  details  of  a  plan  by  capitalists  to  bring 

the  soft  coal  and  the  anthracite  together  into  one  common  or¬ 
ganization.  I  asked  how  it  was  possible  to  control  the  thousand 
loosely  scattered  bituminous  mines.  He  (an  operator)  answered, 
“  Simply  because  we  have  got  the  railroads.  Through  railroad 
control  we  have  got  the  anthracite  where  no  independent  operator 
can  trouble  us  a  bit.  To  control  the  soft  coal  is  of  course  far 
more  difficult,  but  it  is  not  difficult  if  we  have,  as  we  shall  have, 
proper  control  of  transportation.”  —John  Graham  BrooTcs. 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES.  43 

Witness  the  Northern  Securities  combine— 
which  was  squarely  balked  by  the  initiative  of 
plucky  and  puissant  Minnesota !  Witness  the  re¬ 
cent  sensational  absorption  of  the  Louisville  and 
Nashville  into  Morgan’s  net-work  of  Southern 
roads.  Witness  the  compact  organization,  in  fla¬ 
grant  violation  of  both  State  and  national  laws,  of 
all  the  anthracite  coal  roads.  Observe,  also,  that 
the  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  the  Norfolk  and  West¬ 
ern,  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio,  and  the  Long  Is¬ 
land  railroads,  have  all  very  lately  been  merged 
into  the  Pennsylvania  system.  Group  with  these 
the  Vanderbilt,  the  Gould,  and  the  Harriman  sys¬ 
tems— and  we  plainly  see  that  through  4  4  commun¬ 
ity  of  interest,”  and  through  Morgan’s  effective 
methods  of  persuasion  and  coercion,  it  is  already 
possible  for  a  small  group  of  men  to  meet  in  se¬ 
cret  conclave  in  a  Wall  Street  parlor,  and  there 
decide,  for  good  or  ill,  questions  of  supremest 
importance  to  the  industry,  the  commerce,  the 
banking  facilities,  and  the  political  policies  of  the 
whole  American  people — Actually  decide  for 
peace  or  war,  should  an  occupant  of  the  White 
House  be  a  man  of  war-like  temper  and  bold  am¬ 
bition!  For  bold  men  are  alike  the  world  over; 
and  we  have  lately  been  witnesses  to  the  frightful 
fact  that  a  small  group  of  diamond  mining  mag¬ 
nates  and  gold  mining  millionaires  in  South  Afri¬ 
ca,  first  aroused  the  patriotism  of  the  British 
people,  and  then  led  them  headlong  into  a  death¬ 
dealing  and  awful  war ! 

As  I  write  our  danger  point  is  Venezuela. 
Probably  a  little  later  it  will  be  Brazil;  and  we 
have  Cuba,  Manila,  and  Pekin  as  magazines  of 


44 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


political  dynamite,  ever  ready  for  the  explosive 
spark.  Naval  battles,  also,  are  picturesque,  in¬ 
spiring,  and  inexpensive  in  point  of  men  and 
money  as  compared  with  war  on  land.  To  divert 
attention  from  home  affairs ;  to  check-mate  an  up¬ 
rising  of  working  men;  or  to  carry  a  doubtful 
presidential  election, — there  will  be  no  lack  of  op¬ 
portunity  for  a  stirring  appeal  to  patriotism  to 
rise  in  defense  of  4 ‘ home  industries’ ’  and  our  na¬ 
tional  pride. 

RHODES  ’S  REASONS  FOR  THE  RAID. 

London,  March  27  (1902). — Cecil  Rhodes  never  publicly 
avowed  the  reasons  why  he  organized  the  Jameson  raid.  They 
are  now  set  forth  in  his  own  words  by  one  of  his  biographers, 
who  quotes  Mr.  Rhodes  as  saying: 

“There  were  three  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  I  found  that 
old  Kruger  was  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  the  union  of  South 
Africa,  even  for  commercial  purposes  and  for  the  development  of 
the  country.  I  tried  him  in  every  way  I  could  on  what  you  may 
call  Afrikander  principles,  but  it  was  of  no  use,  and  so  long  as 
he  ruled  the  Iransvaal  the  brake  was  put  on  all  progress  in 
South  Africa. 

The  second  reason  was  that  there  was  an  English-speaking 
minority  opposed  to  Kruger,  but  at  least  as  much  opposed  to  see¬ 
ing  South  Africa  under  the  British  flag.  That  was  then  a  small 
minority,  but  a  growing  one,  and  if  left  to  develop  it  would  have 
become  a  majority.  When  the  hour  came  to  get  rid  of  Kruger, 
that  would  have  balked  the  policy  for  which  I  had  struggled  all 
my  life— to  make  South  Africa  an  integral  part  of  the  British 
Empire. 

‘  *  The  third  reason  was :  You  cannot  make  revolutions  in  these 
days  without  money,  and  1  had  at  my  command  at  that  time  a 
combination  of  millionaires  ready  to  support  me  whom  I  might 
never  be  able  to  get  together  again.” 

—New  Yorlc  Sun. 

Our  situation,  in  naked  reality,  is  the  net  result 
of  the  British  system  of  finance  and  the  discarded 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


45 


British  system  of  Protection,  to  which  Alexander 
Hamilton,  a  native-born  British  subject,  made  us 
heir.  For  we  have  no  less  an  authority  than  Gou- 
verneur  Morris,  the  life-long  and  chosen  friend 
who  preached  the  funeral  sermon  over  Hamil¬ 
ton’s  dead  body,  for  this  statement: 

“General  Hamilton  had  little  share  in  forming  the  Constitu¬ 
tion.  He  disliked  it,  believing  all  republican  government  to  be 
radically  defective.  He  heartily  assented,  nevertheless,  to  the 
Constitution;  because  he  considered  it  a  band  which  might  hold 
us  together  for  some  time,  and  he  knew  that  national  sentiment  is 
the  offspring  of  national  existence.  He  trusted,  moreover,  that 
in  the  changes  and  chances  of  time,  we  should  be  involved  in 
some  war  which  might  strengthen  our  union  and  nerve  the  ex¬ 
ecutive.  ’  ’ 

And  since  Hamilton,  the  British  statesman, 
gave  us  Protection ;  and  since  Carnegie,  the  Brit¬ 
ish  pretender,  has  made  ns  pay  Protection’s  pen¬ 
alties,  let  us  now  turn  to  a  British  aristocrat  for 
an  estimate  of  the  possibilities  of  onr  system  of 
railroad  finance. 

The  late  Duke  of  Marlborough,  a  very  able 
man,  was  an  interested  student  of  American  in¬ 
dustrial  development.  He  visited  ns  often;  and 
he  found  here  so  much  of  feminine  loveliness  to 
lure  him,  that  he  took  a  handsome  American  heir¬ 
ess  as  his  wife.  Profiting  by  precept  and  exam¬ 
ple  the  young  Duke  followed  in  the  father’s  foot¬ 
steps.  He  came,  he  saw,  and  he  was  conquered— 
the  newspaper  reporting  his  marriage  settlement 
at  $10,000,000.  And  thus  the  House  of  Vander¬ 
bilt  was  allied  to  the  House  of  Marlborough. 

The  late  Duke  visited  us  in  the  winter  of  1890- 
91,  and  writing  home  to  the  F ortnightly  Review , 


46 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


for  April,  1891,  he  had  this  to  say  of  the  possibili¬ 
ties  of  our  system  of  railroad  management : 

1 1  There  is  nothing  to  control  the  amount  of  share  capital  a 
group  of  promoters  may  print.  They  print  what  they  please, 
and  they  issue  it  as  the  public  will  buy  it  in  the  market  on  the 
speculation  that  it  is  going  to  receive  a  dividend,  or  that  the  vot¬ 
ing  value  of  the  stock  is  worth  so  much  for  the  purpose  of  obtain¬ 
ing  a  control  of  the  system. 

‘  ‘  There  is,  in  fact,  no  limit  to  the  power  of  a  small  ring  in  the 
United  States  who  have  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  control  of  one 
of  the  big  through  systems  of  communication;  and  the  control 
once  obtained,  it  is  a  simple  question  of  time  when  they  will  be 
able  to  swallow  up  everything  within  their  reach. 

( 1  The  people  who  are  really  to  be  wondered  at,  however,  are 
the  citizens  of  the  United  States,  who  continue  to  permit  such  a 
gigantic  political  abuse  as  this  American  railway  monopoly  to 
grow  up  as  it  is  doing  in  the  hands  of  a  group  of  gigantic  capi¬ 
talists  in  New  York  and  other  great  towns  of  America  .  .  .  . 

that  the  American  public,  which  prides  itself  on  its  democratic 
institutions,  should  have  allowed  this  aristocracy  to  grow  up  in 
in  its  midst,  which  is  daily  becoming  infinitely  more  powerful  and 
infinitely  more  dangerous  than  all  the  feudal  aristocracies  of 
Europe  put  together.  It  was  easy  to  get  rid  of  the  European  dif¬ 
ficulty  with  the  guillotine,  as  the  Freuch  did,  without  tearing  up 
the  foundations  of  all  social  life  in  the  country  itself.  In  Amer¬ 
ica  this  financial  and  railway  aristocracy  is  slowly  building  itself 
into  the  very  bone  and  sinew  of  the  people,  and  it  will  be  a  very 
difficult  twentieth-century  problem  to  know  how  Congress  Is  going 
to  deal  with  the  matter. 

“No  one  who  has  been  to  America  can  fail  to  be  struck  with 
the  vastness  of  the  railway  interest  of  that  country.  It  repre¬ 
sents  the  very  life  and  lungs  of  trade,  and  at  the  same  time  is 
the  predominant  factor  in  preserving  political  unity  of  interests 
between  States  separated  by  thousands  of  miles  of  intervening 
plains,  rivers,  and  mountains.  The  management  as  w'ell  as  the 
mismanagement  of  these  vast  systems  is  one  of  the  marvels  of 
that  great  continent. 

“These  systems  must  continue  to  grow  to  meet  the  wants  of 
increasing  population  and  the  large  centres  of  permanent  indus- 


47 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 

t 

try  and  manufacture  that  exist  everywhere.  It  must  be  noted, 
however,  that  the  great  main  arteries  of  these  systems  are  now 
permanently  marked  out.  It  will  be  practically  impossible  to 
make  new  main  routes,  except  at  fabulous  cost,  with  approaches 
to  the  coast.  The  strategical  positions  are  seized  and  occupied, 
and  whoever  can  possess  himself  to-day  of  a  controlling  interest 
in  a  main  through  route  and  allied  feeders  across  the  great  cen¬ 
tral  basin  of  the  Northern  States  cannot  be  deprived  of  a  gigan¬ 
tic  monopoly  in  the  present  and  in  the  future.  ,} 

It  was  a  Triumvirate  of  very  able  men  who  rose 
above  the  chaos  and  civil  strife  of  the  Roman  Re¬ 
public,  and  who  gave  it  what  they  called  order, 
what  they  called  Prosperity. 

Then  it  was  that  the  golden  age  of  Augustus 
was  ushered  in ;  and  then  it  was  that  the  wealth  of 
Rome  became  fabulous  beyond  compare— when 
vast  temples,  magnificent  palaces,  and  superb 
public  gardens  adorned  the  great  city  of  two  mil¬ 
lion  inhabitants;  when  exquisite  villas  and  ter¬ 
raced  gardens  of  surpassing  beauty  lined  either 
bank  of  the  Tiber ;  when  rich  men  vied  with  each 
other  in  drawing  about  them  the  poets,  the  philos¬ 
ophers,  the  teachers,  and  the  art  treasures  of 
once-glorious  Greece;  and  when  Rome,  mistress 
of  the  world,  boasted  herself  the  chief  patron  of 
learning,  of  literature,  of  science,  of  patriotism, 
of  all  that  makes  for  the  fullness  and  sweetness  of 
life. 

But  it  all  ended  in  utter  ruin  and  desolation ! 

And  it  ended  so — because  the  people  lost  their 
liberties ;  because  men  were  enslaved  to  the  serv¬ 
ice  of  their  rulers ;  and  because  the  patrician  fam¬ 
ilies  neither  knew  nor  worshipped  any  other  god 
than  mammon ! 

I  am  not  in  the  least  afraid  that  our  money-mad 


48 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY 


millionaires  can  do  the  American  people  any  last¬ 
ing  injury.  I  do  not  share  any  one  of  the  grave 
apprehensions  which  the  Duke  voices  for  timid 
men  who  take  no  time  to  study  the  forces  which 
move  society.  I  know  that  publicity  has  already 
shown  us  a  complete  and  permanent  solution  of 
our  financial  problem— the  most  vital  of  all  our 
problems!  I  know  that  publicity  will  light  the 
way  for  the  easy  and  lasting  solution  of  every 
difficulty  that  confronts  us  in  railway  manage¬ 
ment  and  corporation  finance.  And  this  firm  faith 
I  feel  because  it  was  my  rare  good  fortune  as  a 
little  boy,  in  the  tented  camps  of  the  heroes  of 
our  Union’s  cause,  to  catch  the  spell  of  moving 
tales  that  told  of  the  virtue,  the  valor,  and  the 
glory  of  an  appeal  to  manly  Courage.  Small  won¬ 
der  that  I  early  learned  to  scout  the  Scare  game. 
Less  wonder  still  that  long  ago  I  learned  to  place 
abiding*  trust  in  our  millions  of  fighting  freemen, 
bred  of  soldier  fathers  and  born  of  patriot  moth¬ 
ers,  who  stand  ever  watchful  and  ready  “at  the 
call  of  the  laws  to  fly  to  the  standard  of  the  law” 
— in  defence  of  that  equality  before  the  law, 
that  precious  heritage  of  free  citizenship,  for 
which  our  fathers,  in  successive  generations 
through  three  long  and  bloody  centuries,  have 
freely  given  their  lives,  their  fortunes,  their  all! 

“Our  citizens  may  be  deceived  for  a  while,  and  have  been  de¬ 
ceived;  but  as  long  as  the  press  can  be  protected,  we  trust  them 
for  light.77 

“In  a  government  bottomed  on  the  will  of  all,  the  life  and 
liberty  of  every  individual  citizen  becomes  interesting  to  all. 7  7 


RULE  OF  THE  MILLIONAIRES. 


49 


‘  ‘  I  have  no  fear  but  that  the  result  of  our  experiment  will  be 
that  men  may  be  trusted  to  govern  themselves  without  a  mas¬ 
ter.  ’  ’ 

“I  ever  fondly  cherished  the  interests  of  the  West,  relying  on 
it  as  a  barrier  against  the  degeneracy  of  public  opinion  from  our 
original  and  free  principles.  ’ 7 

1  ‘  The  last  hope  of  human  liberty  in  this  world  rests  on  us. 
We  ought,  for  so  dear  a  state,  to  sacrifice  every  attachment,  every 
enmity.”  — Thomas  Jefferson. 

If  now  a  few  thinking  Americans  will  recall  a 
little  of  Roman  history,  and  a  great  deal  of  Amer¬ 
ican  history,  as  our  Revolutionary  fathers  re¬ 
called  them  in  their  day ;  I  think  they  will  quickly 
see  that  the  first  duty  of  this  hour  is  to  learn  just 
what  should  be  done,  just  how  it  can  be  done— 
and  then  straightway  get  about  the  doing ! 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK. 


But  hark  !  the  bugles  blowing  on  the  peaks 
And  hark  !  a  murmur  as  of  many  feet. 

The  cry  of  captains,  the  divine  alarm  ! 

Look,  the  last  Son  of  Time  comes  hurrying  on 
The  strong  young  Titan  of  Democracy ! 

With  swinging  step  he  takes  the  open  road 
In  love  with  the  winds  that  beat  his  hairy’ breast 
Baring  his  sunburnt  strength  to  all  the  world 
He  casts  his  eye  around  with  Jovian  glance  : 

tracks  of  old  Tradition  ;  scans 
With  rebel  heart  the  books  of  Pedigree ; 
in  *ace  Privilege,  and  cries, 

Why  are  you  halting  in  the  path  of  man? 
is  it  your  shoulder  bears  the  human  load? 

Do  you  draw  down  the  rains  of  heaven. 

And  keep  the  green  things  growing?  Back  to  hell !  ” 

— Edwin  Markham. 


1  e\  UflhaVe  faitk  that  ri£ht  makes  might;  and  in  that  faith 
et  us;  to  the  end,  dare  to  do  our  duty  as  we  understand  it.  ’ 1 

—Abraham  Lincoln . 

“I  believe  that  in  the  twentieth  century,  which  is  now  near  it* 
dawn  the  spirit  of  commercialism  will  steadily  grow  less  strom? 
and  the  spirit  of  altruism  stronger.  I  believe^that  the  rule  do 
unto  others  as  you  would  have  others  do  unto  you,  will  more  ien- 
er^f  PTrevai1  thfn  m  al]  the  centuries  which  have  gone  beforeg 

o-rPPfl  ™  fm  mis,taken  m  thls~lf  the  spirit  of  commercialism  and 
greed  continues  to  grow  stronger-then  the  twentieth  century  will 
witness  a  social  cataclysm  unparalleled  m  history.  It  is  only  bv 
the  discountenancing  of  commercialism  and  the  spreading  of  al¬ 
truism  that  we  can  safeguard  justice,  property  and  liberty.  ” 

—Abram  S.  Hewitt. 


Chapter  II. 

We  know  the  men  who  rule. 

Now  let  us  lay  bare  the  transparent  motives  of 
the  politicians  who  shout  Protection,  who  threat¬ 
en  panic,  who  insist  that  we  “let  well  enough 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK.  51 

V',7  i 

alone”— but  who,  all  the  while,  are  voting  the 
people’s  money  straight  into  the  pockets  of  the 
Trust-promoting  millionaires. 

It  is  quite  the  fashion  nowadays  to  exhaust  the 
vocabulary  of  invective  in  furious  abuse  of  our 
political  buccaneers — the  modern  free-booters 
who  make  a  business  of  corrupt  politics— the  men 
who  manage  the  party  machinery,  control  the  pri¬ 
maries,  dispense  the  little  offices,  and  handle  the 
corruption  funds  in  popular  elections.  Notorious 
by  name  and  scandalous  in  methods,  they  are 
standing  targets  for  newspaper  attack— conven¬ 
ient  scapegoats  for  the  rich  men  by  whom  they 
are  employed !  But  obviously  they  are  an  effect, 
not  a  cause.  They  exist  because  millionaires  pay 
fabulous  prices  to  install  their  servants  in  the 
Senate.  They  are  needed  to  lobby  Protection 
legislation  through  both  houses  of  Congress. 
They  are  steadily  employed  to  control  and  cor¬ 
rupt  State  legislatures  in  the  interest  of  great  cor¬ 
porations.  They  are  richly  rewarded  for  bribing 
City  Councils  and  manipulating  city  franchises. 
And  seeing  how  men  of  wealth  and  power  and  po¬ 
sition  enrich  themselves  by  corruption  and  spe¬ 
cial  legislation— they  simply  scoff  at  public  opin¬ 
ion,  bottle  conscience,  and  neither  know  nor  pro¬ 
fess  any  other  gospel  than  to  “look  out  for  my 
own  pocket  all  the  time.” 

No,  no;  I  shall  waste  very  little  ammunition 
upon  the  scape-goats— For  I  know,  and  all  the 
world  is  fast  finding  out,  that  the  millionaires  are 
the  men  who  dictate  the  party  policy,  who  write 
the  platforms,  and  who  freely  dispense  great 
honors,  high  offices,  and  priceless  Wall  Street  in- 


52 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


formation  to  able  and  ambitions  men — provided 
always  that  they  pledge  themselves  to  unswerving 
support  of  “Protection  to  home  industries. ’ ’ 
And  among  the  politicians  as  among  the  million¬ 
aires,  I  select  to  place  responsibility  where  re¬ 
sponsibility  belongs— Upon  the  able  men  of  high 
standing,  great  influence,  and  great  opportuni¬ 
ties,  who,  to  hold  office  and  win  political  “hon¬ 
ors,”  openly  lend  themselves  to  the  party  mana¬ 
gers  and  the  party  policy  which  the  Trust  pro^ 
moters  dictate. 

First  and  foremost  among  these  is  the  strenu¬ 
ous  gentleman  in  the  White  House— the  cour¬ 
ageous  reformer  who  deals  in  so  many  fine 
phrases  of  civic  virtue,  but  who  in  action,  and  es¬ 
pecially  in  halted  action ,  obediently  does  the  bid¬ 
ding  of  his  scheming  party  managers.  Fond  of 
posing  as  a  broncho-buster  and  a  rough-rider— to 
corral  the  Western  vote ;  fond  of  entertaining  ne¬ 
groes  in  the  White  House — to  capture  Southern 
and  Hew  England  delegations  to  the  next  national 
convention;  and  amusingly  fond  of  dramatic  at¬ 
titudes  upon  all  possible  occasions — he  speaks 
like  a  hero  when  he  talks  of  Cuba,  when  he  prom¬ 
ises  publicity,  and  when  he  threatens  the  Trusts. 
But  finally  driven  into  the  open,  finally  forced  to 
declare  himself  upon  the  tariff  question  as  related 
to  Trusts,  he  staggers  brave  men  who  were  tempt¬ 
ed  to  admire  and  trust  him,  by  shamelessly  avow¬ 
ing  from  the  public  platform  that  “the  question 
of  regulating  the  Trusts  with  a  view  to  minimiz¬ 
ing  and  abolishing  the  evils  existent  in  them  is 

separate  and  apart  from  the  question  of  tariff  re¬ 
vision.” 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK.  53 

And  this  from  a  man  who  began  his  career  as 
an  ardent  free  trader,  an  active  member  of  the 
Cobden  Clnb ! 

Small  wonder  that  Carnegie  comes  back  from 
his  Skibo  estates  to  give  the  newspaper  reporters 
this  message  for  the  public : 

‘  ‘  I  think  the  President  is  exactly  right  on  the  trusts.  He  goes 
neither  to  one  extreme  nor  the  other.  ‘  The  golden  mean  is  the 
path  of  wisdom,  ’  said  Confucius.  Trusts  cannot  entail  any  per¬ 
manent  injury  upon  the  country.  America  is  in  a  transitional 
period.  Great  aggregations  of  capital  are  necessary  now.  They 
are  the  creations  of  the  nation.  The  Government  can  regulate 
them— spank  the  bad  ones,  and  pat  the  good  ones  on  the  back. 

“All  trusts  are  not  bad.  All  trusts  are  not  good.  We  must 
discriminate. 1 1 

Note  the  quotation  from  the  heathen  philoso¬ 
pher.  Recall  the  Chinese  wall  of  tariff  duties 
which  the  Republican  party  has  builded  to  ‘  ‘  pro¬ 
tect”  Mr.  Carnegie’s  American  domains.  Then 
read  this  indictment  of  our  heroic  reform  Presi¬ 
dent  from  the  pen  of  the  dean  of  the  New  York 
press— the  venerable  but  ever-ready  and  courage¬ 
ous  editor  of  The  Journal  of  Commerce  and  Com¬ 
mercial  Bulletin : 

1  ‘  The  trial  of  the  Trust  issue  before  public  opinion  can  hardly 
be  said  to  be  progressing  satisfactorily.  True,  the  great  body  of 
public  complainants  are  no  less  resolute  than  they  have  been,  but 
certainly  more  so.  '  The  defenders,  however,  are  assuming  a 
craftiness  of  attitude  which  is  anything  but  assuring.  The  open¬ 
ing  of  Congress  leaves  no  doubt  that  the  party  in  power  stands 
committed  to  the  monopolistic  cause. 

“Much  more  serious  in  its  significance  is  the  attitude  of  the 
President ’s  Message.  For  the  first  time,  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  shown 
himself  capable  of  yielding  his  will  to  the  behests  of  party  lead¬ 
ers.  His  itinerant  addresses  had  been  enthusiastically  welcomed 


54 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


as  evidence  that  the  party  of  capital  has  fallen  under  the  chal¬ 
lenge  of  a  statesman  who  has  the  courage  and  the  prudence  to 
impose  restraints  upon  the  threatening  ambitions  of  his  party. 
This  attitude  had  won  for  him  a  position  of  strength  in  both 
parties  which  made  him  the  strongest  man  in  the  country  and 
placed  his  re-election  within  easy  reach.  Strange  to  say,  his  late 
Message  casts  to  the  winds  the  ascendancy  he  had  so  marvelously 
won  and,  by  yielding  to  the  remonstrances  of  party  leaders,  he 
has  surrendered  his  political  ascendancy,  sacrificed  his  reputation 
for  courage,  subjected  himseli  to  the  dictation  of  partisans  of 
iow  morale  and  disappointed  the  rising  hope  of  the  country  that 
at  last  it  had  found  a  savior  on  whom  it  might  depend  for  avert¬ 
ing  the  dangerous  drifts  of  the  times.  The  President  ’s  new  al¬ 
lusions  to  the  Trusts  are  so  gingerly,  so  evasive  and  so  inexplicit 
as  to  leave  it  quite  uncertain  how  much  or  how  little  he  means, 
and  it  is  no  longer  safe  to  count  upon  him  as  an  effective  factor 
in  the  settlement  of  this  question. 

This  is  far  from  being  an  assuring  situation.  It  implies  one 
of  two  things,  either  that  the  Republican  leaders  are  ignorant 
of  the  growing  anger  of  the  public  against  the  monopolies,  or 
that,  whilst  well  aware  of  this  popular  hostility,  they  are  resolved 
to  stand  by  the  infinitesimal  millionaire  minority  and  disregard 
the  will  of  the  overwhelming  middle  and  lower  classes.  In  either 
case,  the  party  is  demonstrating  its  incompetence  to  deal  with 
this  question  to  the  public  satisfaction;  and  the  outcome  of  its 
action  can  only  be  expected  to  be,  first,  failure,  then  the  prolon¬ 
gation  of  the  struggle  under  conditions  of  public  exasperation, 
and  then  forms  of  public  disturbance  from  which  the  imagina¬ 
tion  shrinks.  The  public  have  shown  great  patience  and  self-con¬ 
trol  as  this  stupendous  issue  has  developed,  hoping  that  some 
wholesome  solution  may  be  finally  reached,  but  resolved  to  accept 
nothing  short  of  a  sound  and  safe  settlement.  They  now  begin 
to  foresee  the  near  approach  of  a  fierce  political  struggle  and  are 
asking  seriously  what  may  be  the  outcome  of  such  a  conflict. 

Is  this  a  record  which  commends  itself  to  men 
of  prudence  and  foresight?  Is  this  a  record 
which  makes  the  Republican  party  a  safe  and  sure 
reliance  in  these  days  of  angry  unrest  and  grave 
uncertainty  ? 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK.  55 

And  what  of  the  Republican  leader — the  man 
who  won  for  himself  by  winning  the  West!  Are 
the  American  people  still  ready  to  believe  that 
this  life-long  politician  is  straightforward  and 
honest  in  declaring  himself  on  the  Trust  question! 

I  think  not.  I  fancy  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  will  spend 
the  remainder  of  his  public  career  in  strenuous 
work  and  strenuous  writing  to  induce  the  people 
to  forgive —but  never  forget!  For  it  was  Jeffer¬ 
son  who  taught  us  that  ‘  4  The  whole  art  of  govern¬ 
ment  consists  in  being  honest ;”  and  it  was  Lin¬ 
coln  who  taught  us  that  "You  can  fool  all  the  peo¬ 
ple  some  of  the  time,  and  you  can  fool  some  of  the 
people  all  the  time;  but  you  can’t  fool  all  the  peo¬ 
ple  all  the  time. 9 1 

Next  in  order  of  importance  we  have  Senator 
Marcus  A.  Hanna— a  Warwick  to  McKinley,  and 
hence  Major  General  of  field  forces,  High  Priest 
of  the  gospel  of  "a  full  dinner  pail.”  Also  neigh¬ 
bor,  intimate,  and  beneficiary  of  the  Rockefeller 
interests;  cheek  by  jowl  with  the  Steel  Trust,  the 
shipping  combine,  and  the  soft  coal  combination 
—and  just  now  an  anxious  pleader  for  harmony 
and  co-operation  with  the  forces  of  organized 
labor,  grown  angry,  restless,  and  irresistible  at 
the  ballot  box.  And  precisely  how  Mr.  Hanna 
goes  about  the  business  of  "manufacturing”  a 
needful  show  of  public  sentiment  in  favor  of  his 
candidates  and  legislative  measures,  is  clearly  re¬ 
vealed  in  the  following  authorized  interview  pub¬ 
lished  in  the  New  York  Herald  at  the  time  he  was 
putting  the  Ship  Subsidy  grab  through  the  Senate 

machine : 

Methods  are  being  employed  in  behalf  of  this  measure  that 


56 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


have  never  been  known  before  in  the  national  capital.  Senator. 
Hanna  is  methodical  in  everything.  He  applies  the  same  efforts 
to  politics  that  he  applies  to  business,  and  he  is  now  applying 
the  same  rules  to  legislation  that  he  applies  to  politics. 

In  behalf  of  the  Subsidy  bill  a  campaign  of  instruction  has 
been  extended  to  every  State  in  the  Union.  In  Washington  a 
press  bureau  has  been  organized  to  supply  newspaper  correspond¬ 
ents  with  information  bearing  on  the  progress  of  the  bill.  This 
is  run  exactly  on  the  lines  of  a  press  bureau  of  a  national  political 
committee,  and  the  men  managing  it  are  the  same  who  managed 
the  press  bureau  for  Senator  Hanna  in  the  last  campaign  at  No. 
1  Madison  avenue,  New  York. 

In  addition  to  this  a  literary  bureau  has  been  organized.  This 
is  engaged  in  sending  to  all  parts  of  the  country  copies  of 
speeches  made  in  support  of  the  Subsidy  bill,  together  with  com¬ 
mittee  reports  in  favor  of  the  measure  and  arguments  gathered 
from  various  sources.  The  speeches  of  Senators  Frye  and  Hanna 
have  been  sent  out  literally  by  the  million. 

Indiana,  where  the  opposition  to  the  Subsidy  bill  began,  just 
as  did  the  opposition  to  the  Puerto  Rican  tariff,  has  been  flooded 
with  literature.  Arguments  in  favor  of  the  bill  have  also  been 
sent  to  Ohio,  Illinois,  Minnesota,  Iowa  and  one  or  two  other 
States  where  the  press  has  been  very  active  in  opposing  the  bill. 

Still  another  bureau  has  been  directly  in  correspondence  with 
leading  members  of  business,  commercial  and  financial  exchanges, 
boards  of  trade  and  similar  organizations,  with  a  view  of  impress¬ 
ing  upon  them  the  advantages  of  the  Subsidy  bill  and  asking  them 
to  have  their  organizations  take  action.  As  a  result  these  bodies 
all  over  the  country  are  meeting  and  passing  resolutions  in  favor 
of  the  bill.  Senator  Frye  has  received  resolutions  of  this  sort 
from  organizations  in  almost  every  State,  and  they  are  now  com- 
ing  at  the  rate  of  six  or  eight  a  day,  showing  that  the  campaign 
of  education  is  bearing  fruit. 

Senator  Hanna  was  asked  to-day  what  the  result  of  his  efforts 
to  create  public  sentiment  had  been. 

“The  result  has  been,”  he  replied,  “a  tremendous  change  in 
sentiment.  We  started  out  with  the  original  assumption  that 
this  bill  was  understood  thoroughly.  We  discovered  that  it  wras 
not  understood.  Since  then  it  has  had  wide  discussion.  We  want 
it  discussed  more  widely. 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK. 


57 


“We  have  sent  literature  wherever  it  has  been  asked  for. 
There  has  been  a  great  demand  for  it.  The  entire  public  is  taking 
an  interest  in  the  matter  and  wants  information.  At  this  mo¬ 
ment  I  have  on  my  desk  invitations  from  four  bodies  in  Greater 
New  York  alone  inviting  me  to  go  over  and  make  speeches.  These 
are  the  Brooklyn  Merchants 1  Association,  the  Tariff  League,  the 
Sound  Money  League  and  the  Republican  Club. 

“I  believe  that  the  bill  will  be  passed,  because  it  ought  to  be 
passed,  and  I  believe  that  the  public  sentiment  now  being  created 
will  pass  it.” 

Then  we  have  Henry  Cabot  Lodge, professional 
Protectionist,  biographer  and  eulogist  of  Alexan¬ 
der  Hamilton,  Administration  leader  in  the  Sen¬ 
ate  and  the  President’s  “dearest,  best  friend”— 
A  sleek  and  artful  manipulator  of  phrases  who  is 
relied  upon  to  stem  the  tide  of  angry  discontent 
among  New  England  manufacturers,  now  paying 
heavy  tribute  to  the  Trusts  through  scandulous 
prices  for  all  the  materials  of  productive  industry, 
prices  so  high  that  home  trade  is  restricted,  and 
export  trade  is  being  strangled. 

Next  after  him  we  have  the  warlike  Mr.  Hoot— 
watchful,  skilled  and  scheming  New  York  corpor¬ 
ation  attorney;  ever-busy  messenger  between 
Morgan  and  the  White  House.  Working  in  har¬ 
ness  beside  him  is  Attorney  General  Knox,  Cabi¬ 
net  representative  of  the  Pittsburgh  steel  inter¬ 
ests,  lugubrious  legal  prosecutor  of  the  Trusts, 
and  author  of  what  Carnegie  assures  us  is  “a 
literary  gem”  in  exposition  of  a  sound  system  of 
Publicity— for  the  corporations ! 

“Philander  C.  Knox  was  yesterday  sworn  in  as  Attorney-Gen¬ 
eral  and  took  his  seat  as  a  member  of  the  Cabinet. 

“Now  that  the  matter  is  fully  consummated,  will  the  chief 
Republican  newspapers  of  this  city  and  of  the  country  lind  their 


i 


58  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

voice  to  speak  of  it?  Is  it  not  so  unusual  as  to  be  extraordinary 
that  a  President  can  till  this  important  office  without  evoking  a 
word  of  approval  from  the  leading  organs  of  his  party?  Did 
such  a  thing  ever  happen  before? 

“It  would  really  be  interesting  to  have  the  opinion  of  these 
journals  as  to  the  wisdom  and  policy  of  appointing  a  chief  coun¬ 
sel  of  the  billion-dollar  Steel  Trust  to  administer  the  anti-trust 
laws.  Do  they  think  it  prudent— to  put  it  on  no  higher  ground — 
to  permit  Mr.  J.  Pierpont  Morgan  to  designate  the  official 
charged  with  the  enforcement  of  the  anti-trust  and  interstate  com¬ 
merce  laws?  Do  they  think  the  appointment  of  a  second  Cabinet 
officer  from  the  strong  Republican  State  of  Pennsylvania  ordinar¬ 
ily  good  politics  ?  Do  they  think  President  McKinley  would  have 
ventured  to  make  this  appointment  before  the  last  Presidential 
election  ? 

‘  i  The  silence  of  the  organs  is  growing  oppressive.  Perhaps 
they  are  waiting  to  speak  in  chorus?  —  The  New  York  World. 

“The  retiring  Attorney-General  is  to  form  a  partnership  with 
the  counsel  for  the  billion-dollar  Steel  Trust,  and  the  incoming 
Attorney-General  is  an  attorney  for  the  largest  constituent  cor¬ 
poration  in  the  trust.  As  The  World’s  Washington  correspond¬ 
ent  observes,  the  trust  catches  the  Attorney-Generalship  of  the 
United  States  both  a-coming  and  a-going. 

—  The  Springfield  Republican. 

Senator  Chauncey  M.  Depew,  millionaire  ora¬ 
tor  par  excellence,  and  always  busy  with  oily 
tongue ;  but  in  the  Senate  solely  because  he  is  the 
richly  paid  attorney  of  the  Vanderbilt  estates! 
Through  Tom  Platt  the  Vanderbilts  absolutely 
control  a  majority  vote  in  the  legislature  of  New 
York;  and  thus  the  freemen  of  the  great  Empire 
State,  and  the  citizens  of  the  imperial  city  of  the 
Nation,  are  subjected  to  the  ignominy  of  repre¬ 
sentation  in  the  United  States  Senate  by  a  paid 
railroad  attorney  and  a  notorious  political  cor¬ 
ruptionist. 

At  first  Senator  Platt’s  attitude  towards  reelection  was  lan- 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK.  59 

guidly  indifferent.  He  might  consent  to  it,  or  he  might  not. 
Next  we  have  him  loftily  consenting  to  “accept 7  '  a  reelection. 
Finally,  he  admitted  that  he  was  an  active  and  even  an  eager  and 
somewhat  anxious  ‘  ‘  candidate.  ’  ’  How  he  would  run  if  the  party 
could  get  a  fair  chance  to  vote  upon  him  is  shown  by  the  fol¬ 
lowing  summary  of  the  opinions  of  leading  Republicans  of  the 
State : 

For  Against 
Platt.  Platt. 


Clergymen  .  5  41 

College  professors .  3  37 

Editors  and  authors .  9  42 

Prominent  citizens  .  20  33 

Presidents  of  railroads,  banks  and  trusts .  13  0 

Office  holders  and  ex-office  holders .  59  0 


109  153 

— New  Yorlc  Evening  Post. 

Matthew  Stanley  Quay,  the  master-mind  of  cor¬ 
ruption  politics— the  man  who  granted  the  Stand¬ 
ard  Oil  Company  its  priceless  pipe-line  fran¬ 
chises  ;  the  man  who  levies  unfailing  tribute  upon 
the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company,  the  anthra¬ 
cite  coal  barons,  and  the  Pittsburg  steel  Protec¬ 
tionists;  the  man  who  dares,  defies,  and  defeats 
the  outraged  public  sentiment  of  the  great  Key¬ 
stone  State ;  the  man  who  does  more  than  any  liv¬ 
ing  man  to  obstruct,  manipulate,  and  defeat  every 
move  in  Congress  in  the  people’s  interest. 

Senator  William  B.  Allison,  wheel-horse  of  the 
Republican  party,  chairman  of  the  Senate  Com¬ 
mittee  on  Appropriations,  and  patriarch  of  Pro¬ 
tection  teaching— a  man  who  has  devoted  a  life¬ 
time  to  the  work  of  taxing  millions  out  of  the 
pockets  of  Iowa  farmers  that  a  few  Pennsylvania 
and  New  England  manufacturers  might  he  en- 


60 


JEFFERSON  I  AIM  DEMOCRACY. 


riclied.  Surely  if  there  be  a  patriotic  duty  that 
the  yeomen  of  Iowa  now  owe  to  themselves  and 
their  children,  it  is  to  retire  this  gray-bearded  of¬ 
fender  to  the  repentance  of  seclusion  and  private 
life. 

Stephen  B.  Elkins,  the  adventurous  speculator 
who  made  a  fortune  in  New  Mexico,  built  a  little 
railroad  in  West  Virginia,  and  then,  almost  be¬ 
fore  he  acquired  the  pretense  of  citizenship,  be¬ 
gan  the  systematic  work  of  secretly  pledging  and 
quietly  electing  a  majority  of  the  Legislature 
which  sends  him  to  the  Senate— in  place  of  John¬ 
son  N.  Camden,  the  “Democrat, ”  who  represent¬ 
ed  the  Standard  Oil  Company  in  the  same  seat 
during  twelve  years  of  steady  monopoly  building. 
I  spent  my  boyhood  in  West  Virginia;  I  learned 
my  first  lessons  in  newspaper  work  on  her  daily 
and  weekly  press ;  and  I  know  the  rich  little  com¬ 
monwealth.  from  mountain  peak  to  valley  and 
from  the  Pan  Handle  to  Greenbrier.  “All  moun¬ 
taineers  are  Freemen;”  and  if  the  freemen  of 
proud  little  WTest  Virginia  could  get  at  Elkins  by 
direct  vote  of  the  people,  and  get  at  Scott,  the 
nobody  who  sits  with  him,  not  a  corporal’s  guard 
of  unpaid  voters  could  be  mustered  in  favor  of 
either  man.  This  all  W7est  Virginia  knows — and 
blushes  in  knowing  it !  But  wait— wait !  The  pa¬ 
triot  Wilson  is  dead,  but  Wilson’s  priceless  teach¬ 
ing  and  example  still  live !  We  shall  hear  from 
West  Virginia  again— as  surely  as  we  heard  from 
her  in  war  time ! 

Senator  Nelson  W.  Aldrich,  Chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Finance— the  most  important  of 
the  Senate  committees.  Mr.  Aldrich  is  supposed 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK. 


61 


to  represent  the  free  people  of  Rhode  Island ;  but 
in  naked  truth  he  is  the  Senate  leader  of  the 
Standard  Oil  interests,  and  father-in-law  of 
young  John  D.  Rockefeller,  Jr.  The  New  York 
Evening  Post  has  lately  rendered  a  notable  public 
service  by  publishing  a  series  of  startling  disclo¬ 
sures  of  the  utter  corruption  of  political  life  in 
proud  little  Rhode  Island.  I  trust  that  some  hero 
with  both  patriotism  and  a  pocket  book  will  make 
a  business  of  republishing  the  series  in  pamphlet 
form,  and  then  mailing  a  copy  to  the  personal  ad¬ 
dress  of  every  voter  throughout  the  entire  State. 
At  one  fell  swoop  “that  will  do  the  business  for 
the  gang.  ’  ’  And  meanwhile,  this  brief  extract  is 
enough  for  our  present  purpose : 

“Providence,  R.  I.,  March  14.— Open  shame  is  on  this  State, 
with  its  honorable  history  and  splendid  traditions.  Bribery  and 
corruption  are  the  sores  that  affect  the  body  politic.  Public 
opinion  is  apathetic.  Votes  and  men  are  bought  and  sold,  and 
decent  men  in  the  community  hold  their  hands.  Stories  of 
bribe-giving  and  taking  are  current  on  the  streets  and  in  the 
clubs,  and  no  one  is  found  so  skeptical  as  to  disbelieve  them. 
The  political  infamy  of  the  State  has  been  spread  abroad  through 
the  newspapers  and  other  public  journals.  A  boss — blind,  like 
justice — sits  in  his  office  in  the  State  House  and  tells  the  Legisla¬ 
ture  what  it  may  and  may  not  do. 

“Probably  the  most  depressing  feature  of  the  situation  is  that 
the  men  who  constantly  accept  bribes  are  often  men  of  substance, 
owning  their  homes,  and  sometimes  other  property.  They  don  ’t 
need  the  money.  Long  years  of  bribe-taking  have  deadened  their 
consciences.  They  take  the  bribe  as  their  natural  right,  and  ex¬ 
pect  it  just  as  they  expect  payment  when  they  do  a  day’s  work 
for  some  one.  That  is  a  thing  that  must  be  overcome.  These 
men  must  be  educated  in  their  duty  to  themselves  and  the  State, 
and  made  to  see  the  heinousness  of  their  crime. 

‘  ‘  Some  money  is  used  for  bribery  in  every  State  election.  A 
prodigious  amount  was  expended  in  1892.  Aldrich  was  up  for 


62 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


re-election  to  the  United  States  Senate,  and  of  course  that  meant 
that  the  Republican  workers  had  money. 

“Against  these  conditions  there  has  been  a  long,  hard,  and 
hitherto  unavailing  tight.  The  Republican  boss,  Charles  R. 
Brayton,  has  kept  an  unshaken  grip  upon  his  rotten  boroughs ; 
street  railways  and  other  corporations  that  depend  upon  legisla¬ 
tive  favor  have  helped  to  throttle  the  commonwealth;  and  men 
like  Senator  Aldrich  have  risen  to  eminence  through  this  degra¬ 
dation  of  their  constituencies. 7  7 

Senator  Eugene  Hale — hailing  naturally  from 
Blaine ’s  State,  and  naturally,  too,  another  of  Car¬ 
negie^  intimate  friends.  Mr.  Hale  is  the  un¬ 
blushing  Prophet  of  Prosperity  whose  business  it 
is  to  teach  that : 

1 1  The  Dingley  act  has  given  the  people  of  the  United  States 
more  revenue,  more  business,  more  trade  and  more  prosperity 
than  any  bill  ever  before  enacted. 7  7 

And  then,  alas,  in  the  House  of  Representa¬ 
tives,  and  on  the  stump  in  every  Presidential  elec¬ 
tion,  we  see  grizzled,  battle-scarred  and  forceful 
old  soldiers,  bravely  avowing  honest  faith  in  Pro¬ 
tection,  and  doubtless  striving  to  do  their  duty  as 
they  dimly  see  it;  but  who,  in  naked  truth,  are 
bending  the  backs  of  their  old  comrades  to  the 
service  of  a  shameless  oligarchy  of  men  who  en¬ 
rich  themselves  through  legislation  thus  pitifully 
promoted. 

I  might  go  on  indefinitely  multiplying  names  of 
men  prominent  in  both  Senate  and  House,  in 
gubernatorial  chairs  and  State  legislatures — but 
again,  1  say,  we  are  not  concerned  with  the  rank 
and  file.  I  have  designated  the  resourceful  and 
responsible  leaders.  I  have  uncovered  the  sordid 
motives  and  the  pocket-interest  connections  of 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK. 


63 


those  who  look  to  Wall  Street  for  every  move  in 
the  great  game  of  promotion  politics  for  personal 
profit.  Fame  lures  the  politicians,  but  ignoble 
gain  is  the  master  motive  which  moves  the  men 
who  do  the  dangerous  work. 

Now  let  us  see  the  machine  at  work. 

Mr.  Henry  Loomis  Nelson  has  contributed  to 
the  Century  Magazine  for  February,  1903,  a  pa¬ 
per  entitled  “The  Over-Shadowing  Senate,” 
which  I  should  like  to  publish  here  entire.  That 
being  impracticable,  I  strongly  recommend  that 
my  readers,  and  especially  newspaper  editors, 
make  a  business  of  reading  it  at  the  libraries. 
For  in  this  one  article  Mr.  Nelson  clearly  reveals 
the  fact  that,  through  irresponsibility  to  the  peo¬ 
ple,  and  through  “courtesy  of  the  Senate,”  that 
body  has  become  “the  most  perfectly  developed 
trust,  or  trade-union,  in  the  country ;  and  there  is 
hardly  any  existing  combination  which  is  more 
inimical  to  the  general  welfare  than  the  Senate 
union  has  sometimes  been,  and  may  easily  be 
again !  ’ ’ 

Towards  the  close  of  his  paper  Mr.  Nelson 
gives  us  this  illuminating  insight  into  just  how 
the  Senate  leaders  do  their  work : 

“For  days  the  conferees  had  been  wrestling  over  a  Senate 
amendment  to  the  tariff  bill.  The  representatives  had  the  better 
of  the  argument,  and  pushed  their  advantage  until  the  senators 
were  on  the  point  of  yielding.  The  item  of  the  tariff  bill  in¬ 
volved  concerned  an  article  made  by  a  powerful  combination  in 
which  the  most  potent  figure  of  the  National  Committee  of  the 
time  was  interested.  The  Senate  amendments  provided  for  in¬ 
creased  protection  for  this  article;  the  House  bill  had  placed  it 
on  the  free  list.  As  the  House  conferees  thought  that  they  were 
on  the  point  of  gaining  the  victory,  a  telegram  was  handed  in  at 


64 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


the  door.  It  was  directed  to  one  of  the  senators.  He  read  it, 
and  passed  it  to  his  colleagues.  There  was  an  earnest  discussion 
between  the  three,  and  then  the  despatch  was  shown  to  the  con¬ 
ferees  from  the  House.  It  read  as  follows: 

“The - schedule  will  stand  as  amended  by  the  Senate,  or 

the  bill  must  fall.  * ’ 

The  signature  was  that  of  the  political  and  industrial  potentate. 
The  majority  of  the  House  conferees  stormed  at  what  they 
called  this  impudent  dictation,  and  urged  their  associates  to 
withstand  the  corrupt  pressure ;  but  their  associates  did  not  dare, 
and  the  schedule  as  amended  remained  in  the  bill  in  order  to 
save  the  measure. 

Thus  we  see  the  Senate  sitting  at  the  gates  of  power  and  levy¬ 
ing  tribute  upon  all  comers.  Even  the  judiciary  is  not  free  from 
its  control.  The  Senate  passes  on  judges  as  on  other  appointees, 
while,  as  master  of  legislation,  the  time  may  come  when  it  will 
compel  the  enactment  of  a  law  increasing  or  diminishing  the 
number  of  judges  on  the  Supreme  bench  for  its  own  purposes. 
This  preliminary  being  arranged,  the  senators  will  doubtless  se¬ 
cure  the  appointment  of  men  of  their  own  views. 

The  overshadowing  power  of  the  Senate  is  unquestioned,  and 
it  is  exerted  every  day  of  the  political  year.  The  Senate,  indeed, 
possesses  many  virtues  which  are  conspicuously  absent  from  the 
popular  branch.  It  considers  measures,  and  debates  them  freely. 
Its  minority  has  often  been  guilty  of  wilful  and  injurious  ob¬ 
struction,  but  loquacious  obstruction  is  not  so  hurtful  to  the 
public  interests  as  silent  obedience.  There  is  nothing  more  hos¬ 
tile  to  the  general  welfare  than  concealment  of  the  reasons  for 
and  against  the  enactment  of  laws;  nor  are  there  many  things 
more  desirable  in  a  modern  democracy  than  the  suppression  of 
legislation  by  obstruction  or  otherwise.  Buckle’s  view  is  truer 
than  ever :  the  chief  value  of  legislation  to-day  lies  in  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  and  power  to  remedy  mistakes  of  the  past:  “Repeal  is 
more  blessed  than  enactment. 7  7  The  Senate  contains  industrious 
and  intelligent  men  who  work  for  the  public  interests,  but  its 
power  over  the  President  tends  to  the  corruption  of  the  public 
service,  while  its  domination  over  the  House  of  Representatives, 
coupled  with  the  rules  and  the  practices  of  the  hierarchy,  makes 
that  body  a  silent  assemblage  without  the  power  which  the  law 
intended  it  to  exercise.  Even  appropriation  bills,  which,  under 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK.  65 

the  Constitution,  must  originate  in  the  House,  receive  their  final 
form  in  the  Senate  or  iu  conference. 

One  result  of  the  immense  growth  of  a  senator’s  power  and 
influence  is  the  temptation  thereby  offered  to  masterful  men  of 
wealth.  To  such  men  there  is  no  pleasure  comparable  to  that  of 
exercising  power.  The  joy  of  the  ruler  is  dear  to  them,  and  there 
is  no  position  in  this  country  like  a  senatorship  for  breeding  that 
ecstasy.  An  indictment  against  wealth  in  politics,  per  se,  is  folly ; 
but  wealth  in  public  life,  unguided  and  uninformed,  untempered 
by  a  patriotic  and  statesmanlike  regard  for  the  general  welfare, 
is  hostile  to  the  country’s  best  interests  *  *  *  *  Their 

first  tendency  is  to  consider  the  effect  of  proposed  legislation  on 
special  interests.  It  is  unquestionably  an  evil  that  men  who  have 
no  talent  for  public  life  should  attain  to  its  highest  honors  merely 
because  they  are  rich.  In  the  present  Senate  there  are  more  than 
a  score  of  men  who  would  not  be  there  but  for  their  possession 
of  wealth.  *  *  *  *  When  to  this  we  add  the  domination 

which  the  Senate  has  gained  over  the  President  and  the  popular 
branch  of  Congress,  and  over  the  party  organizations,  we  readily 
understand  that  it  is  a  menace  to  the  health  of  the  body  politic. 
We  need  not  inquire  as  to  the  corruption  of  the  Senate;  but  we 
know  that  it  is  corrupting.  It  is  corrupting  even  if  it  only  stim¬ 
ulates  the  cynical  belief  in  its  lack  of  virtue  which  is  embodied  in 
a  doubtless  untruthful  story  not  long  ago  current  in  Washington. 
This  tale  of  fiction  runs  to  the  effect  that  a  senator,  on  hearing 
that  an  aspirant  for  election  to  the  Chamber  had  refused  to  re¬ 
spond  to  the  last  demand  made  upon  him  for  money,  said: 

“How  foolish!  Doesn’t  he  know  that  a  senatorship  is  worth 
sixty  thousand  dollars  a  year?” 

The  sad  thing  is  that,  absurd  as  the  fiction  is  upon  its  face, 
its  narration  was  never  known  to  be  received  with  any  expres¬ 
sion  of  surprise,  with  any  expression  whatever  except  that  smile 
which  indicates  that  such  a  tale  told  of  such  a  subject  is  to  be 
expected.  When  men  are  known  to  secure  seats  in  the  Senate 
because  they  are  rich,  and,  being  in  the  Senate,  thereby  become 
dominant  powers  in  the  government  and  in  party  politics ;  and 
when  the  legislation  which  secures  most  attention  from  Congress 
affects  private  commercial  and  financial  interests,  suspicions  of 
corruption  are,  to  say  the  least,  not  astonishing.  The  Senate  is 
not  only  powerful :  it  is  exacting  and  arbitrary ;  while  the  char- 


66 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


acter  of  its  constituent  elements  makes  it  self-assertive,  tyranni¬ 
cal,  and  prone  to  prefer  the  material  to  the  moral  advantage  of 
the  republic.  Its  overshadowing  influence  and  the  manner  in 
which  it  is  exerted,  inevitably  recall  the  saying  of  our  ancient 
enemy,  Lord  Bute: 

‘  ‘  The  forms  of  a  free  and  the  ends  of  an  arbitrary  government 
are  things  not  altogether  incompatible. 7  ’ 

Simultaneously  with  the  publication  of  this  not¬ 
able  paper  by  the  Century  Magazine ,  we  had  the 
battle  royal  in  the  Senate  over  the  Littlefield  pub¬ 
licity  measure ;  and  it  was  the  strategy  and  high 
play  of  that  struggle  between  the  President  and 
the  Senate  leaders  that  affords  us  instructive 
demonstration  of  the  dangerous  nower  of  the 
Senate  as  now  constituted. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Littlefield  bill 
was  emasculated  in  the  House  committee,  by  the 
addition  of  a  clause  making  it  apply  only  to  cor¬ 
porations  “hereafter  to  he  organized”—  in  other 
words,  as  the  New  York  Herald  observed,  “any 
one  bold  enough  to  compete  with  the  existing 
mighty  combinations  is  to  he  pilloried  for  their 
benefit!  After  that,  it  is  scarcely  worth  while  to 
discuss  the  rest  of  the  bill,  but  it  lodges  danger¬ 
ous  private  inquisitorial  powers  in  the  commis¬ 
sion  to  harass  the  possible  competitors ,  not  at  all 
for  the  information  of  the  public— all  the  publi¬ 
city  enjoined  is  the  yearly  issue  of  4  a  list ^  of  cor¬ 
porations,  with  ‘an  abstract’  of  their  formal  re¬ 
turns.  ’ 9 

In  this  emasculated  form  the  bill  was  passed  by 
the  Republican  House— obviously  to  give  a  sem¬ 
blance  of  obedience  to  the  overwhelming  popular 
demand.  So  soon  as  it  reached  the  Senate,  the 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK. 


67 


serviceable  Elkins  came  forward  with  his  shifty 
substitute  to  prohibit  railroad  ‘ 4 rebates” — which 
the  Standard  Oil  Company  long  ago  abandoned  in 
favor  of  Quay’s  pipe-line  franchises.  Then 
straightway  the  lugubrious  Knox,  representing 
“the  Administration,”  check-mated  Elkins  by 
throwing  Littlefield  overboard  and  revising  the 
Nelson  amendment  to  the  Department  of  Com¬ 
merce  bill  so  that  “discretion  is  lodged  in  the 
President  as  to  the  publication  of  facts  useful  to 
be  known  publicly.” 

The  outcome  of  the  whole  performance  is 
neither  more  nor  less  than  a  temporary  personal 
triumph  for  Mr.  Roosevelt.  Instead  of  providing 
for  Publicity,  Congress  has  simply  armed  the 
President  with  power  to  demand  his  nomination 
upon  penalty  of  publicly  attempting  disclosures 
of  Trust  finance  that  would  put  a  short  stop  to  the 
profitable  business  of  marketing  watered  stocks 
to  the  investing  public.  And  before  the  bills  are 
signed  by  the  President,  the  plain  purpose  of  the 
move  is  revealed  in  this  news  which  comes  to  us 
through  the  associated  press  dispatches : 

J.  P.  MORGAN,  HANNA  AND  ALDRICH  IN  WHITE  HOUSE. 

“"Washington,  Feb.  15.— Callers  at  the  White  House  to-night 
included  Senators  Hanna  and  Aldrich,  who  remained  with  the 
President  until  nearly  11  o  ’clock.  ’ ’ 

“J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  who  returned  to  the  city  from  Rich¬ 
mond,  Va.,  shortly  before  10  o  ’clock,  also  called  during  the  even¬ 
ing.  He  left  the  house  with  Senators  Hanna  and  Aldrich,  going 
as  far  as  their  hotel  with  them,  when  he  returned  to  his  car  at 
the  railroad  station,  later  leaving  for  New  York  City.  ’  ’ 

Then  immediately  following  the  conference  be¬ 
tween  Morgan,  Hanna,  Aldrich  and  Roosevelt, 


68 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


this  is  the  carefully  prepared  announcement 
which  was  given  to  the  public  through  the  associ¬ 
ated  press  dispatches.  I  take  it  from  the  New 
York  Herald ,  of  February  16,  1903,  after  verify¬ 
ing  it  by  comparison  with  the  same  dispatch  ap¬ 
pearing  in  other  New  York  papers : 

Washington,  D.  C.,  Sunday,  Feb.  15.— Attorney-General  Knox 
who  is  known  to  have  prepared  the  important  features  of  the 
anti-trust  bills  now  enacted  into  laws,  on  being  asked  as  to  how 
they  were  regarded  by  the  Administration,  said: 

1 1  The  legislation  affecting  the  trusts  passed  at  this  session  of 
Congress  is  satisfactory  to  the  Administration,  and  the  prompt  re¬ 
sponse  to  the  President ’s  requests  is  highly  gratifying.  A  very 
long  stride  in  advance  has  been  accomplished,  and  the  promises 
of  last  fall  have  been  made  good. 

REBATE  LAW  EFFECTIVE. 

‘‘The  giving  and  taking  of  railroad  rebates  is  now  prohibited 
by  a  law  capable  of  effective  enforcement  against  corporations 
as  well  as  individuals,  and  the  courts  of  the  United  States  are 
clothed  with  jurisdiction  to  restrain  and  punish  violations. 

“The  act  creating  the  Department  of  Commerce  vests  in  that 
department  complete  authority  to  investigate  the  organization 
and  business  methods  of  corporations  engaged  in  Interstate  and 
foreign  commerce,  and  to  that  end  to  compel  the  testimony  of 
persons  having  the  desired  knowledge. 

“ Discretion  is  lodged  m  the  President  as  to  the  publication  of 
facts  useful  to  be  publicly  known ,  and  a  wise  administration  of 
the  law  promises  much  that  is  helpful  and  nothing  that  is  harm¬ 
ful. 

SITUATION  SATISFACTORY. 

“The  law  to  expedite  the  hearing  of  cases  and  giving  an  ap¬ 
peal  directly  to  the  Supreme  Court  from  the  court  of  first  in¬ 
stance  assures  within  a  reasonable  time  authoritative  decisions 
upon  important  pending  questions,  in  the  knowledge  of  which 
future  legislation,  if  necessary ,  can  be  confidently  framed.  ’  ’ 

Thus  we  see  that,  in  addition  to  being  com¬ 
mander  in  chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy,  Mr. 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK. 


69 


Roosevelt  is  now  armed  with  despotic  power  over 
every  big  and  little  corporation  in  the  entire  coun¬ 
try  that  may  be  engaged  in  inter-state  commerce. 
He  can  exercise  the  power  in  accordance  with  his 
individual  pleasure;  he  can  put  on  the  pressure 
when  and  where  he  chooses ;  and  he  can  treat  with 
his  victims  under  threat  of  withholding  or  pub¬ 
lishing  information  of  vital  importance  to  the 
whole  people.  Obviously,  the  first  use  he  hopes 
and  plans  to  make  of  this  power  is  to  persuade 
the  millionaires  that  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  to 
grant  bim  a  nomination  for  the  Presidency.  He 
is  tired  of  having  Hanna  bid  against  him  for  the 
labor  vote  and  the  negro  vote;  he  means  to  have 
done  with  the  necessity  for  bickering  and  bargain¬ 
ing  with  Platt  and  Quay  for  the  machine  delegates 
from  New  York  and  Pennsylvania;  and  he  knows 
—as  some  of  the  rest  of  us  do— that  the  true  way 
to  manage  the  machine  is  to  hold  the  whip  handle 
over  the  men  who  make  the  machine  possible  and 
profitable. 

But  is  this  government  of  the  people  by  the  peo¬ 
ple—  as  Lincoln  taught  us  ?  Is  it  not,  rather,  gov¬ 
ernment  of  the  people  by  Roosevelt — for  the  spe¬ 
cific  purpose  of  advancing  Mr.  Roosevelt’s  per¬ 
sonal  and  political  ambition?  Will  the  people  be 
content  with  just  the  kind  and  quantity  of  Pub¬ 
licity  that  Mr.  Roosevelt,  and  his  conferees,  deem 
proper  to  publish?  I  fancy  not.  I  imagine  that 
on  the  opening  day  of  the  next  Congress— Repub¬ 
lican  though  it  will  be — we  shall  see  Publicity 
measures  introduced  in  the  lower  House  which 
will  clearly  reflect  the  people’s  fixed  determina¬ 
tion  to  have  corporation  Publicity  over  which  Mr. 


70 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


Roosevelt  will  never  have  the  slightest  occasion 
for  conference  with  Mr.  Morgan,  Mr.  Hanna,  and 
Mr.  Aldrich.  For  even  among  Republicans  I  im¬ 
agine  there  are  many  men  who  have  chanced  to 
read  this  solemn  warning,  penned  by  Thomas 
Jefferson  far  back  in  1789 : 

“It  would  be  a  dangerous  delusion  were  a  confidence  in  the 
men  of  our  choice  to  silence  our  fears  for  the  safety  of  our 
.rights.  Confidence  is  everywhere  the  parent  of  despotism — free 
Government  is  founded  on  jealousy,  and  not  in  confidence.  It  is 
jealousy  and  not  confidence  which  prescribes  limited  Constitu¬ 
tions  to  bind  down  those  whom  we  are  obliged  to  trust  with 
power.  Our  Constitution  has  accordingly  fixed  the  limits  to 
which,  and  no  further,  our  confidence  may  go ;  and  let  the  honest 
advocate  of  confidence  read  the  Alien  and  Sedition  acts  and  say 
if  the  Constitution  has  not  been  wise  in  fixing  limits  to  the  gov¬ 
ernment  it  created,  and  whether  we  should  be  wise  in  destroying 
those  limits.  In  questions  of  power,  then,  let  no  more  be  heard 
of  confidence  in  man,  but  bind  him  down  from  mischief  by  the 
chains  of  the  Constitution.  ’  ’ 

In  the  light  of  this  plain  teaching,  in  the  light 
of  experience  and  plain  common  sense,  we  can 
now  see  how  far  we  have  drifted  towards  one  man 
rule— towards  the  tyranny  of  an  oligarchy  of  rich 
men  who  rule  the  Senate  with  money,  and  who 
rule  able  and  ambitious  politicians  through  the 
political  machine  which  money  supports.  For  to 
overcome  the  machine  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  deliber¬ 
ately  loaned  himself  to  the  usurpation  of  despotic 
power  over  the  people — a  power  which  is  without 
precedent  in  the  annals  of  American  history;  a 
power  which  would  scarcely  be  attempted,  much 
less  tolerated,  in  Royal  Britain  or  even  Imperial 
Germany ;  a  power  which  is  the  sheerest  travesty 
upon  popular  government. 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK.  71 

Mr.  Roosevelt’s  life  long  experience  in  practi¬ 
cal  politics  has  simply  enabled  him  to  trick  the 
tricksters  in  the  game  of  machine  management. 
He  doubtless  reasons  that  the  nomination  is  now 
easily  within  his  grasp ;  that  Prosperity,  the  gos¬ 
pel  of  “a  full  dinner  pail,”  and  the  certain  blun¬ 
ders  of  the  disorganized  Democracy  will  elect  him 
for  what  he  deems  a  first  term ;  and  then  a  second 
term— giving  him  the  unexampled  glory  of  over 
eleven  years  in  the  Whit©  House — can  be  easily 
won.  And  this  program  is  now  entirely  agreeable 
to  Mr.  Morgan,  Mr.  Hanna  and  Mr.  Aldrich,  as 
the  evidence  clearly  shows. 

“Are  the  gentlemen  who  assemble  daily  in  the  Capitol  at 
Washington  fools?  Or  do  they  think  the  American  people  are 

fools? 

“To  one  question  or  the  other  an  affirmative  reply  must  be 
made  by  every  citizen  who  notes  the  course  that  is  pursued  with 

respect  to  “  anti  trust  ’  ’  legislation. 

« *  What  a  performance !  Claptrap  and  stage  thunder  from  first 
to  last.  We  don't  really  believe  that  the  men  In  Congress  are 

imbeciles.  Neither  are  the  people !  ’  ’ 

— New  Yorh  Herald,  Feh.  18,  1903. 

I  am  quite  sure  that  my  brethren  of  the  press 
will  find  the  means  for  making  an  amusing  mess 
of  all  these  pretty  plans.  And  thinking  men  of 
influence  in  this  generation  are  now  in  position  to 
adequately  appreciate  the  wisdom  of  the  fathers 
in  providing  for  a  Presidential  election  every 

four  years. 

Both  the  President  and  the  Trust  promoting 
millionaires  know  exactly  what  the  people  want 
and  need  in  the  matter  of  corporation  Publicity ; 
and  we  shall  not  have  to  wait  beyond  the  next 


72 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


election  to  secure  an  adequate  and  lasting  solution 
of  the  problem— for  in  the  national  bank  act  the 
genius  of  Salmon  P.  Chase  has  plainly  shown  the 
way.  But  let  us  suppose  that  the  Constitutional 
convention  had  adopted  the  plan  of  a  single  seven 
years’  term — as  it  came  near  doing,  and  as  many 
able  men  still  insist  it  should  have  done.  Under 
that  system,  Mr.  Roosevelt  could  now  go  on  for 
full  five  years  in  the  exercise  of  his  despotic 
power;  the  Wall  Street  promoters  could  quietly 
proceed,  through  full  five  years  of  time,  in  the 
busy  work  of  distributing  watered  stocks  to  in¬ 
vestors,  who  know  next  to  nothing  about  them ;  at 
the  end  of  that  term  "  "  community-of-interest,  ’  ’ 
political  and  financial,  would  enable  the  ruling 
millionaires  to  select  another  ‘"popular”  candi¬ 
date,  probably  more  manageable  than  Mr.  Roose¬ 
velt;  and  the  end  of  that  would  be— Just  about 
what  happened  in  France  in  1789  and  again  in 
1871.  ""  History  but  repeats  itself;”  and  as  Lin¬ 
coln  wisely  observed,  ""the  people  always  mean 
right,  and  in  the  end  they  will  have  the  right”— 
through  blood  and  sacrifice  should  occasion  call, 
as  it  has  often  called  before! 

It  was  wise  old  George  Mason,  of  Bill  of  Rights 
fame,  who  declared  that  he  would  chop  off  his 
right  hand  rather  than  sign  the  Constitution  as 
originally  adopted;  and  he  kept  on  declaring  it, 
kept  on  with  the  grim,  determined  work  he  had  in 
hand  until  in  1791  ten  amendments  were  added — 
chief  among  which  was  the  first  one : 


“Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting  the  establishment  of 
religion,  or  prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof;  or  abridging 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK.  73 

the  freedom  of  speech,  or  of  the  press;  or  the  right  of  the  peo¬ 
ple  peaceably  to  assemble,  and  to  petition  the  Government  for  a 
redress  of  grievances.  ’  ’ 

So,  too,  it  was  Thomas  Jefferson  who  declared: 

“Were  it  left  to  me  to  decide  whether  we  should  have  a  gov¬ 
ernment  without  newspapers,  or  newspapers  without  a  govern¬ 
ment,  I  should  not  hesitate  a  moment  to  prefer  the  latter ! ’  ’ 

1 1  Our  citizens  may  be  deceived  for  a  while,  and  have  been 
deceived;  but  as  long  as  the  press  can  be  protected  we  trust 
them  for  light.  ’ ’ 

‘  ‘  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  fear  the  people.  ’  ’ 

<  <  The  information  of  the  people  at  large  can  alone  make  them 
the  safe,  as  they  are  the  sole,  depository  of  our  religious  and  po¬ 
litical  freedom !  ’  ’ 

A  free  press  is  the  precise  form  of  Publicity 
with  which  Mr.  ftoosevelt,  and  the  mighty  mil¬ 
lionaires  he  is  leading,  must  now  reckon ;  and  it  is 
to  the  fearlessly  free  press  of  the  New  York 
American  that  we  are  indebted  for  the  public  dis¬ 
closure  of  this  speaking  telegram,  which  explains 
everything : 

New  York,  February  6th,  1903. 
Hon.  M.  S.  Quay,  Senate  Chamber,  Washington,  H.  C. 

Yesterday’s  letter  received.  We  are  unalterably  opposed  to  all 
proposed  so-called  Trust  Bills,  except  the  Elkins  Bill  already 
passed  by  the  Senate,  preventing  railroad  discrimination;  every¬ 
thing  else  is  utterly  futile  and  will  result  only  in  vexatious  in¬ 
terference  with  the  industrial  interests  of  the  country.  The 
Nelson  Bill,  as  all  others  of  like  character,  will  be  only  an  engine 
for  vexatious  attacks  against  a  few  large  corporations.  It  gives 
the  right  of  Federal  interference  with  business  of  State  Corpora¬ 
tions,  without  giving  any  Federal  protection  whatever.  There 
is  no  popular  demand  for  such  a  measure.  If  any  bill  is  passed 
it  should  apply  to  all  individual  partnerships  and  corporations 


74 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


engaged  in  interstate  business,  and  it  should  be  made  mandatory 
on  all  as  to  making  reports  of  their  business  to  the  commerce 
department. 

Am  going  to  Washington  this  afternoon.  Please  send  word  to 
the  Arlington  where  I  can  see  you  this  evening. 

John  D.  Archbold. 

And  this  is  the  story  of  that  telegram  which  the 
staff  correspondent  of  the  American  sent  on  from 
Washington: 

Washington,  Feb.  31. — I  have  forwarded  this  morning  by 
mail  to  the  American  the  telegram  sent  by  the  Standard  Oil  Com¬ 
pany  in  an  effort  to  prevent  the  passage  of  all  so-called  anti-trust 
measures  with  the  exception  of  the  Elkins  bill. 

The  telegram  was  sent  with  the  knowledge,  consent  and  ap¬ 
proval  of  John  D.  Rockefeller,  president  of  the  Standard  Oil 
Company. 

When  John  D.  Archbold  signed  the  message  he  was  acting  for 
the  Standard  Oil  Trust  through  the  advice  and  direction  of  Mr. 
Rockefeller. 

It  has  been  denied  that  the  telegram  was  sent,  but  the  denial 
has  not  been  made  by  Mr.  Archbold  or  Mr.  Rockefeller. 

Conservative  men  could  not  believe  that  even  Standard  Oil 
officials  would  have  the  brazen  effrontery  to  issue  fiats  even  to 
such  men  as  Matthew  Stanley  Quay,  or  use  a  telegram  as  a  means 
of  communicating  the  order,  but  the  American  will  show  them 
that  this  very  thing  has  been  done. 

The  telegram  obtained  for  the  American  tells  the  story  of  its 
own  infamy. 

Its  parallel  is  not  in  the  history  of  all  the  corrupt  lobbying 
that  has  been  the  rule  since  the  Republicans  came  into  power 
seven  years  ago. 

Politicians,  office  holders,  and  all  those  familiar  with  the  ma¬ 
chinery  of  legislation  in  Washington,  scouted  the  idea  that  men 
like  Mr.  Rockefeller  and  his  associates  would  resort  to  telegrams 
to  issue  orders  to  those  whom  they  could  command. 

Such  an  act,  they  urged,  was  entirely  foreign  to  the  calm, 
cunning  and  calculating  mind  of  John  D.  Rockefeller,  who  has 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK. 


75 


made  no  blunders  in  business,  and  for  that  reason  would  make 
no  mistakes  in  attempting  to  stifle  the  passage  of  the  nation’s 
laws. 

They  will  be  startled  to-morrow  morning  when  they  read  the 
telegram  that  Mr.  Archbold  wrote  and  Mr.  Rockefeller  ordered  to 
be  sent. 

There  is  no  further  question  as  to  what  has  been  done. 

The  American  will  make  known  to-morrow  to  the  nation  that 
the  time  is  here  when  the  controllers  of  trusts  feel  that  they  are 
sufficiently  strong  to  give  orders  to  men  elected  by  the  people  to 
make  laws  as  to  what  they  shall  or  shall  not  do. 

John  D.  Archbold  is  one  of  the  powers  of  the  Standard  Oil 
Company.  He  is  close  to  John  D.  Rockefeller.  In  all  the  schem¬ 
ing  that  made  the  Standard  Oil  Company  rich  beyond  the  dreams 
of  Croesus,  Messrs,  Archbold  and  Rockefeller  have  kept  their 
heads  close  together.  In  this  last  movement  they  have  been  cheek 
by  jowl. 

Mr.  Archbold  telegraphed  to  Senator  Quay  that  he  would  meet 
him  in  Washington  on  the  day  following  the  date  of  his  telegram. 
He  arrived  here  on  February  6,  at  9.05  p.  m.  He  registered  at 
the  Arlington  Hotel,  as  he  said  he  would  in  the  telegram  the 
American  makes  public.  He  remained  in  this  city  until  7  o  ’clock 
on  the  following  day,  when  he  left  for  New  York. 

Several  Republican  Senators  live  in  this  hotel.  Senators  Al¬ 
drich,  O.  H.  Platt,  T.  C.  Platt  and  Hanna  reside  in  the  Arlington. 

When  Mr.  Archbold  comes  to  Washington  those  lawmakers 
whom  the  Standard  Oil  controls  or  desires  to  control  gather  at 
the  Arlington. 

The  Standard  Oil  people  do  not  desire  publicity. 

Standard  Oil  stock  is  not  listed  on  the  New  York  Stock  Ex¬ 
change  because  all  stock  bought  and  sold  must  be  accompanied 
by  full  statements  of  the  business  of  the  issuing  corporation. 
No  man  except  the  officers  of  the  Standard  Oil  knows  its  busi¬ 
ness,  its  earnings  or  its  methods. 

The  Nelson  amendment  to  the  Elkins  bill  provides  for  a  cer¬ 
tain  degree  of  publicity  for  trusts.  Under  this  amendment  the 
Government  can  finally  get  at  the  books  of  all  corporations  doing 
an  interstate  business. 


76 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


The  Elkins  bill,  to  which  the  Standard  Oil  did  NOT  object, 
merely  provides  against  freight  rebates  by  railroad  and  other 
common  carriers. 

The  Elkins  bill  had  no  features  that  would  trouble  any  combin¬ 
ation. 

Its  chief  purpose  was  to  throw  a  sop  to  those  insisting  on  trust 
legislation. 

The  Nelson  amendment  puts  a  section  in  the  bill  that  the  Re¬ 
publicans  did  not  desire. 

The  amended  Elkins  bill,  with  a  trust-sympathizing  party  in 
control  of  the  Government,  will  be  a  dead  letter,  but  with  Demo¬ 
crats  in  charge  to  put  it  in  force  the  measure  might  make  trouble 
for  just  such  monopolies  as  the  Standard  Oil  Trust. 

It  provides  for  publicity.  The  Standard  Oil  people  work  in  the 
dark  and  never  permit  others  than  themselves  to  know  of  the 
transactions  of  the  company. 

The  Littlefield  bill  is  the  most  drastic  of  all  the  Republican 
anti-Trust  measures  offered,  but  it  will  never  get  through  the 
Senate. 

While  its  author  did  not  seek  to  go  to  the  point  of  seriously 
interfering  with  their  privileges,  yet  there  were  certain  features 
that  were  objectionable  to  Mr.  Rockefeller  and  his  confederates. 
Therefore,  it  will  fail  of  final  passage. 

The  net  result  of  to-day’s  anti-Trust  legislation  is  the  amended 
Department  of  Commerce  bill,  including  the  Nelson  amendment 
which  is  introduced  to  force  publicity. 

And  it  is  publicity  that  John  D.  Rockefeller,  master  of  the 
Standard  Oil  Trust,  fought  against  when  he  ordered  the  tele¬ 
gram  sent  which  the  American  will  print  to-morrow  morning  ex¬ 
clusively. 

In  contemplation  of  the  situation  thus  clearly 
revealed,  we  can  now  measure  the  importance  of 
the  coming  Presidential  election;  and  I  think  it 
will  be  some  years  before  we  hear  any  more  grum¬ 
bling  from  “ business  interests’ ’  upon  the  subject 
of  our  “too-frequent  elections.” 

But  if  experience  has  vindicated  the  wisdom 
of  the  fathers  in  the  matter  of  a  four-years  term 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK.  77 

for  the  President,  experience  has  also  shown  that 
the  plan  they  gave  us  of  electing  Senators  by  vote 
of  the  State  legislatures,  instead  of  by  direct  vote 
of  the  people,  has  now  become  the  most  dangerous 
feature  of  our  governmental  system.  F or  legisla¬ 
tive  corruption  is  the  basis  of  all  the  grave  trou¬ 
bles  that  menace  our  present  and  future,  and  the 
Senate  has  now  become  the  stronghold--the  key¬ 
stone  in  the  arch— of  “  community-of -interest’ ’ 
between  politicians  and  promoters,  between  rail¬ 
road  officials  and  combination  financiers,  and,  es¬ 
pecially,  between  State  legislatures,  where  valu¬ 
able  franchises  are  granted,  and  United  States 
Senators,  who  control  and  manipulate  the  local 
political  machines.  In  other  words,  the  State  leg¬ 
islatures  grant  the  valuable  franchises ,  and  the 
same  State  legislatures  elect  the  Senators.  That 
the  one  should  represent  the  other— that  Senators 
should  be  deliberately  pledged  to  protect  and  pro¬ 
mote  the  interests  of  the  corporations— is  as  in¬ 
evitable  as  that  water  flows  down  hill. 

The  theory  of  the  fathers  was  that  the  Presi¬ 
dent  and  the  members  of  the  House — elected  by 
direct  vote  of  the  people— should  represent  the 
Federal  government,  the  Nation,  while  the  Sena¬ 
tors  should  represent  the  State  governments. 
And  having  good  reason  to  fear  a  tyrannous  cen¬ 
tralized  government,  they  gave  the  Senate  a  pre¬ 
ponderance  of  power  over  both  the  President  and 
the  House,  to  make  absolutely  sure  of  preserving 
to  us  the  inestimable  liberty  of  local  self-govern¬ 
ment  in  our  State,  county,  township,  and  munici¬ 
pal  affairs. 

The  system  worked  smoothly  enough  until  the 


78 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


advent  of  the  modern  era  of  the  railroads,  the 
telegraph,  the  telephone,  and  the  great  industrial 
combinations  now  engaged  in  inter-state  com¬ 
merce.  These  are  all  created  loy  the  States — by 
franchises  granted  by  State  legislatures.  And 
they  have  become  so  numerous,  so  powerful,  and 
so  enormously  rich,  that  in  self-defense,  and  often 
with  corrupt  ends  deliberately  in  view,  they  have 
found  it  necessary  to  make  a  business  of  quietly 
electing  a  majority  of  every  State  legislature  that 
has  power  over  their  charters .  Thus,  a  committee 
of  the  hew  York  Board  of  Trade  and  Transporta¬ 
tion,  appointed  to  investigate  railway  freight  dis¬ 
criminations,  reported  not  long  ago  as  follows : 

“The  railroads  control  absolutely  the  Legislatures  of  a  ma¬ 
jority  of  the  States  of  the  Union.  They  make  and  unmake  gov¬ 
ernors,  United  States  Senators  and  Congressmen,  and  under  the 
forms  of  popular  government,  they  dictate  the  governmental 
policy  of  the  United  States.” 

I  could  fill  pages  with  testimony  like  this.  But 
testimony  is  needless.  The  fact  is  common  knowl¬ 
edge. 

Since  the  creation  of  the  Inter-State  Commerce 
Commission  and  the  passage  of  the  Sherman 
Anti-Trust  Law,  the  railroads  and  the  industrial 
combinations  have  suffered  some  inconvenience 
at  the  hands  of  Congressional  committees;  and, 
naturally,  they  have  taken  the  shortest  route  and 
most  effective  means  of  thwarting  every  effort  at 
interference  from  the  national  government — that 
is  to  say,  through  their  control  of  the  State  legis¬ 
latures,  they  now  absolutely  control  a  majority  of 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WOKK.  79 

the  United  States  Senate .  How  true  this  is  we 
can  now  see  by  a  rapid  sketch  of  the  Senate  or¬ 
ganization. 

In  the  first  place,  Protection  is  the  basis  and 
battle-cry  of  the  party  organization — the  one  rea¬ 
son  for  the  party’s  present  existence.  Protection 
is,  therefore,  the  party  lash  which  enables  the 
leaders  to  whip  every  Republican  Senator  into 
line— upon  penalty  of  ostracism  and  certain  de¬ 
feat  at  the  next  election  of  his  State  legislature. 

Aldrich,  the  father-in-law  of  young  John  D. 
Rockefeller,  Jr.,  is  chairman  of  the  Finance  Com¬ 
mittee— which  is  the  equivalent  of  the  AVays  and 
Means  committee  in  the  House. 

Allison  is  chairman  of  the  committee  on  Ap¬ 
propriations,  and  every  man  in  the  Senate  is  un¬ 
der  the  daily  and  hourly  necessity  of  courting  his 
favor. 

Elkins  is  chairman  of  the  committee  on  Inter- 
State  Commerce,  and  thus  every  step  towards 
Publicity  is  squarely  halted  by  this  servant  of  the 
Standard  Oil  monopoly. 

Frye,  of  Ship  Subsidy  fame,  is  chairman  of  the 
committee  on  Commerce,  and  every  favor  that 
every  manufacturer  in  the  country  desires  to  ask 
through  his  Senators  must  have  this  man’s  ap¬ 
proval. 

Hale  is  chairman  of  the  Naval  Committee,  and 
thus  each  and  every  move  in  the  interest  of  the 
most  popular  branch  of  the  public  service  is  sub¬ 
ject  to  the  domination  of  the  most  brazen  advo¬ 
cate  of  the  Dingley  bill. 

Cullom,  the  man  who  sits  in  the  Senate  from 


80 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


Abraham  Lincoln’s  State,  is  chairman  of  the  com¬ 
mittee  on  Foreign  Relations— and  the  record  of 

the  Reciprocity  treaties  is  the  result ! 

• 

“We  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died 
in  vain — that  this  Nation  under  God  shall  have  a  new  birth  of 
freedom — and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people  and 
for  the  people  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth.  1 1 

—Abraham  Lincoln. 

I  shall  not  waste  time  with  enumerating  the 
lesser  committees.  We  need  only  mention  Hanna 
from  Ohio  and  Lodge  from  Massachusetts,  Platt 
and  Depew  from  New  York,  Quay  and  Penrose 
from  Pennsylvania  Elkins  and  Scott  from  West 
Virginia,  and,  lastly,  Kean  and  Dryden  from  New 
Jersey,  the  home  of  the  Trusts.  The  names  are 
enough.  The  pocket-interest  connections  of  the 
men  explain  every  move  that  they  make  and  every 
vote  that  they  cast.  All  the  Nation  knows  that 
these  leaders  rule  the  Senate  majority  with  the 
precision  of  clock-work.  The  Democratic  minori¬ 
ty  is  helpless  in  face  of  their  power.  Not  a  Sena¬ 
tor  on  the  Republican  side  but  risks  certain  ban¬ 
ishment  should  he  dare  to  challenge  the  ring  rule 
of  those  in  control.  And  the  vast  corporations, 
created  by  State  legislatures,  commanding  bil¬ 
lions  of  capital,  employing  millions  of  men,  and 
wielding  a  power  which  dares  everything  but  pub¬ 
lic  opinion — these  are  the  individual  companies 
which  have  built  up  the  Senate  machine,  and 
which  now  rule  it  as  with  a  rod  of  iron : 

The  Standard  Oil  Company, 

The  United  States  Steel  Corporation, 

The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company, 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK.  81 

The  New  York  Central  and  Hudson  River  Rail¬ 
road  Company, 

The  Northern  Securities  Company, 

The  Union  Pacific  Railroad  Company, 

The  Southern  Pacific  Railroad  Company,  . 

The  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company, 

The  Missouri  Pacific  Railroad  Company, 

The  Southern  Railroad  Company, 

The  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company, 

The  American  Sugar  Refining  Company, 

The  American  Tobacco  Company, 

The  American  Smelting  and  Refining  Com¬ 
pany, 

The  Amalgamated  Copper  Company, 

The  National  City  Bank  of  New  York. 

A  score  of  other  great  corporations  might  be 
added  to  the  list,  but  it  is  needless  to  name  the 
lesser  groups.  The  great  companies  I  have  listed 
are  the  ones  which  make  a  business  of  closely 
watching  the  majority  vote  in  every  State  legisla¬ 
ture  in  the  Nation  that  may  be  necessary  to  con¬ 
trol  of  the  Senate.  “Community-of-interest”  is 
the  magic  wand  which  marshalls  every  board  of 
Directors  to  the  prompt  aid  of  tiie  leaders ;  Car¬ 
negie  is  the  splurging  ‘  ‘  benefactor  ’  ’  who  feeds 
the  people  with  Protection  logic  and  literature 
which  economists  spurn  to  write;  Rockefeller  is 
the  silent,  masterful  and  unmatched  organizer  of 
legislative  privilege  and  monopoly;  and  Morgan 
is  the  Napoleon  of  Finance  who  holds  the  invest¬ 
ing  public  in  awe-stricken  wonder  at  his  astonish¬ 
ing  achievements. 

What  is  the  remedy,  do  you  ask  ? 

The  remedy  is  simple  enough.  Session  after 


82  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

session,  for  years  past,  the  House  of  Representa¬ 
tives  has  passed  a  resolution  calling  for  the  elec¬ 
tion  of  Senators  by  direct  vote  of  the  people ;  and 
regularly,  session  after  session,  the  monopoly- 
serving  Senate  has  taken  care  to  pigeon-hole  each 
resolution  in  committee.  They  never  even  permit 
them  to  be  publicly  discussed  in  the  Senate. 
Twenty-nine  State  legislatures  have  passed  the 
same  resolution  in  recent  years;  but  they  have 
always  voted  independently  of  each  other— and 
hence  to  no  purpose.  If  now,  in  concert  of  action, 
thirty  State  legislatures  will  pass  a  resolution 
calling  for  a  Constitutional  Convention,  the  sim¬ 
ple  change  can  be  submitted  to  the  people— and 
we  can  easily  foretell  the  result !  For  it  requires 
little  acumen  to  understand  that  if  Senators  were 
elected  by  the  people,  instead  of  by  State  legisla¬ 
tures  in  control  of  the  political  machine  and  the 
corporations— instantly  these  great  offices  would 
become  high  prizes  for  the  noblest  characters  in 
the  Nation.  Not  a  man  could  or  would  aspire  to 
so  distinguished  an  honor  unless  his  great  abili¬ 
ties  and  the  solid  worth  of  his  work  in  the  public 
interest  could  command  popular  approval  at  the 
polls.  To  be  identified  with  corporations,  or  even 
to  be  suspected  of  such  a  connection,  would  be  po¬ 
litical  doom.  And  to  see  how  true  this  is,  we  can 
picture  what  would  happen  if  Aldrich  presented 
himself  in  Rhode  Island,  if  Lodge  came  before 
the  people  of  Samuel  Adams’  great  State,  if  the 
gray-bearded  offenders  Allison  and  Cullom 
should  challenge  the  liberty-loving  yeomanry  of 
Iowa  and  Illinois,  or  if  that  even  dozen  of  mere 
creatures  of  the  machine— Quay  and  Penrose, 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK. 


83 


Platt  and  Depew,  Hanna  and  Foraker,  Frye  and 
Hale,  Elkins  and  Scott,  and,  finally,  Kean  and 
Dry  den— should  presume  to  present  themselves 
at  the  ballot  box  of  the  millions  of  American  free¬ 
men  in  the  six  great  commonwealths  which  they 
so  shamelessly  misrepresent. 

‘  ‘Scarcely  an  individual  is  to  be  perceived  in  it  (the  Senate) 
who  does  not  recall  the  idea  of  an  active  and  illustrious  career. 
The  Senate  is  composed  of  eloquent  advocates,  distinguished  gen¬ 
erals,  wise  magistrates,  and  statesmen  of  note,  whose  language 
would  at  all  times  do  honor  to  the  most  remarkable  parliamentary 
debates  of  Europe. '  ’ 

— M.  de  Tocqueville  in  1835. 

We  marvel  nowadays  at  the  utter  corruption  of 
American  political  life ;  and  as  old  men  revive  in 
memory  and  young  men  recall  in  history  the  past 
glory  of  the  United  States  Senate,  in  contrast 
with  the  degenerate  body  of  today,  we  stand  be¬ 
wildered  at  the  change  and  seem  hopeless  of  a 
remedy.  But  love  of  money  is  the  root  of  this 
evil— as  it  is  the  tap-root  of  every  evil  in  our  pub¬ 
lic  life ;  and  if  voting  freemen  will  simply  use  the 
common  sense  they  are  born  with,  the  problem  is 
stripped  of  all  mystery  and  the  remedy  becomes 
plain  as  day. 

In  framing  the  Constitution  the  aim  of  the 
fathers  was  to  make  the  Senate  the  enlightened 
and  conservative  force  in  our  government;  to 
have  it  composed  exclusively  of  our  most  eminent 
men,  two  only  to  be  chosen  from  a  whole  State, 
and  each  to  be  elected  for  a  long  term  of  six  years 
—half  again  as  long  as  the  President,  and  three 
times  as  long  as  the  members  of  the  House.  Thus 
constituted,  the  body  was  armed  with  vast  powers 


84 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


— power  in  plenty  to  hold  in  check  a  President 
who  might  plot  to  make  himself  a  dictator,  or  a 
numerous  House  which  might  plunge  us  into  radi¬ 
cal  and  ill-considered  legislation  through  tempor¬ 
ary  anger  and  excitement  of  the  people.  With 
these  ends  in  view,  they  provided  (1)  that  the 
Representatives  should  be  elected  by  the  people, 
(2)  that  the  Senators  should  be  elected  by  the 
State  legislatures,  and  (3)  that  the  President 
should  be  chosen  by  the  members  of  the  Electoral 
College. 

Within  a  few  years  the  latter  feature  proved 
itself  entirely  impracticable;  and  ever  since  Jef¬ 
ferson’s  time,  the  President  has  practically  been 
elected  by  direct  vote  of  the  people,  for  while  we 
still  preserve  the  form  of  voting  for  Presidential 
electors,  everybody  understands  that,  in  reality, 
our  ballots  are  cast  for  the  candidates  named  for 
President  and  Vice  President.  And  just  as  expe¬ 
rience  demonstrated  the  need  for  that  change,  so 
experience  has  now  clearly  shown  the  imperative 
need  for  separating  the  poiver  to  elect  Senators 
from  the  power  to  grant  corporation  franchises 
in  State  legislatures .  The  one  controls  the  other 
inevitably.  Therein  we  have  the  complete  explan¬ 
ation  of  why,  instead  of  a  Senate  to  represent  the 
people,  we  have  the  grim  reality  of  a  Senate  which 
rules  over  us  in  the  interest  of  the  great  and  small 
millionaires  who  have  enriched  themselves 
through  public  franchises  and  Protection  legisla¬ 
tion. 

Of  all  the  reforms  for  which  we  are  now  suf¬ 
fering  sorely,  this  is  the  one  which  would  do  most 
to  destroy  the  political  machine,  do  most  to  purify 


THE  POLITICAL  MACHINE  AT  WORK. 


85 


our  public  life,  and  do  most  to  deprive  the  cor¬ 
porations  and  Trusts  of  their  dangerous  power 
over  the  people.  The  needful  change  would  come 
so  gradually  that  it  could  not  involve  us  in  the 
slightest  disturbance;  the  Senate  would  still  be 
the  conservative  force  that  the  fathers  wisely 
planned  and  we  certainly  desire  to  have  it  remain ; 
and  instantly  the  foremost  men  in  the  Nation 
would  present  themselves  for  the  high  honors 
now  monopolized  by  men  who  are  low  enough  to 
lend  themselves  to  the  ignoble  service  of  the  stock¬ 
jobbers.  For  while  the  rich  are  indeed  money 
mad,  the  people  are  very  far  from  being  so ;  and  if 
we  simply  strip  the  machine  of  power  in  its 
stronghold,  we  shall  speedily  see  the  manhood  and 
intellect  of  America  teaching,  and  proving,  that 
life’s  sweetest  rewards  and  ambition’s  most  en¬ 
during  honors,  lie  far  beyond  the  reach  of  godless 
millions  of  money. 

“I  feel  a  well-grounded  conviction  that  the  best  principles  of 
our  great  and  glorious  ancestors  are  inherited  by  a  large  poition 
of  the  American  people.  And  if  the  talents,  the  policy,  the 
address,  the  power,  the  bigotry  and  tyranny  of  Archbishop  Laud 
and  the  court  of  Charles  the  First  were  not  able  to  destroy  or 
discredit  them  in  1630  or  1635,  there  is  little  cause  of  apprehen¬ 
sion  for  them  from  the  feeble  effort  of  the  frivolous  libertines 
who  are  combining,  conspiring,  and  intriguing  against  them  in 

1802. 

*  ‘  j  find  very  honest  men,  who,  thinking  the  possession  of  some 
property  necessary  to  give  due  independence  of  mind,  are  for  re¬ 
straining  the  elective  franchise  to  property.  I  believe  we  may 
lessen  the  danger  of  buying  and  selling  votes  by  making  the  num¬ 
ber  of  voters  too  great  for  any  means  of  purchase.  I  may  further 
say  that  1  have  not  observed  men’s  honesty  to  increase  with  their 
-jrfipe  ”  —Thomas  Jefferson. 


86 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


We  are  rich  in  patriotism  as  we  are  rich  in 
wealth— and  invincible  in  power !  We  have  thou¬ 
sands  of  able  men  whose  heads  are  4  ‘  equal  to  true 
and  solid  calculations  of  glory.”  And  the  one 
thing  which,  more  than  any  other,  stands  in  the 
way  of  the  priceless  public  service  they  are  ready 
and  eager  to  render,  is  the  formidable  and  utterly 
corrupt  combination  now  pivoted  upon  the  power 
to  secretly  control  State  legislatures— and  thus 
capture  seats  in  the  Senate  and  invaluable  fran¬ 
chises  for  public  utilities. 


OUTLINES  OF  THE  PROBLEMS  NOW 
CONFRONTING  US. 


But  what  avail,  ye  builders  of  the  world, 
Unless  ye  build  a  safety  for  the  soul. 

Man  has  put  harness  on  Leviathan, 

And  hooks  in  his  incorrigible  jaws ; 

And  yet  the  perils  of  the  street  remain. 

Out  of  the  whirlwind  of  the  cities  rise 

Lean  hunger  and  the  worm  of 

The  heartbreak  and  the  cry  of  mortal  J^ars* 

71/T  n'Y'lcn.n.'YYi, . 


“I  hope  we  shall  take  warning  from  the  example  of  England 
and  crush  in  its  birth  the  aristocracy  of  our  moneyed  corpora¬ 
tions,  which  dare  already  to  challenge  our  Government  to  trial, 
and  bid  defiance  to  the  laws  of  our  country.  Jeferson, 

“By  the  Eternal,  the  money-power  shall  not  Jackson. 

“We  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  m 
vain-that  this  Nation  under  God  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  Free¬ 
dom— and  that  Government  of  the  people  by  the  people  and  for 
the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth.  _  Lincoln. 


Chapter  III. 

We  live  in  an  age  of  astonishing  progress. 

We  are  passing  through  an  era  which  is  wholly 
new  in  evolutionary  science,  in  revolutionary  in¬ 
vention,  and  in  the  astounding  increase  of  indi¬ 
vidual  wealth— an  era  which, for  us, is  momentous 
in  its  problems  of  industrial  strife  at  home,  and 
ever-present  danger  of  trouble  in  South  America 

and  the  far  East.  . 

As  the  result  of  amazing  progress  m  all .  the 

mechanic  arts,  the  accumulated  wealth  of  civil- 


88 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


ized  nations  has  doubled,  trebled,  and  quad¬ 
rupled  in  the  past  fifty  years ;  the  great  body  of 
mankind  now  enjoy  comforts  and  luxuries  which 
only  kings  and  princes  could  afford  three  gener¬ 
ations  ago;  the  general  average  of  wages,  for 
skilled  workers  regularly  employed ,  has  ad¬ 
vanced  twofold  or  more;  and  the  purchasing 
power  of  the  gold  dollar  has  enhanced  50  to  75 
per  cent.,  and  more  than  double  for  a  long  list 
of  articles  now  deemed  necessaries  of  the  home. 

But  while  all  Europe  has  been  passing  through 
a  steady  ferment  of  political  agitation,  and  while 
there  great  gains  have  been  made  in  abating  the 
evils  of  aristocratic  rule  and  in  advancing  the 
share  of  the  people  in  the  business  of  governing 
themselves,  in  the  United  States  we  have  had  no 
change  in  our  political  status,  and  happily  no 
thought  or  need  of  fundamental  change,  for  over 
a  century  of  time— the  Civil  War  having  been 
fought  simply  to  preserve  our  institutions  and 
free  the  slaves. 

Thus,  while  physical  science  has  been  going 
forward  by  leaps  and  bounds,  with  us,  political 
science  has  stood  still! 

It  can  stand  still  no  longer! 

The  Trust  issue,  the  war  with  Spain,  the  ac¬ 
quisition  of  Hawaii,  the  Philippines,  and  Porto 
Rico,  the  Cuban  experiment,  and  the  grim  reality 
of  the  Monroe  Doctrine — these  are  all  new  and 
momentous  problems  in  the  political,  industrial 
and  commercial  development  of  America. 

They  mean  simply  that  we  are  now  in  world 
politics— and  in  to  stay!  That  fact  affrights  the 
timid  ones;  but  it  kindles  the  courage,  it  fires 


OUTLINES  OF  PRESENT-DAY  PROBLEMS.  89 


the  enthusiasm,  and  it  ennobles  the  ambition  of 
millions  of  American  freemen  who  know  instinct¬ 
ively— as  a  race  inheritance— that  we  have  now 
fairly  begun  the  grand  work  which  our  fathers 
planned  that  we  should  do. 

“It  is  impossible  not  to  be  sensible  that  we  are  acting  for 
all  mankind;  that  circumstances  denied  to  others,  but  indulged 
to  us,  have  imposed  on  us  the  duty  of  proving  what  is  the  de¬ 
gree  of  freedom  and  self-government  in  which  a  society  may 
venture  to  have  its  individual  members. 11 


“I  know  that  laws  and  institutions  must  go  hand  in  hand 
with  the  progress  of  the  human  mind.  As  that  becomes  more 
developed,  more  enlightened,  as  new  discoveries  are  made,  new 
truths  disclosed,  and  manners  and  opinions  change  with  the 
change  of  circumstances,  institutions  must  advance  also ,  and 
keep  pace  with  the  times.  We  might  as  well  require  a  man 
to  wear  still  the  coat  which  fitted  him  when  a  boy,  as  civilized 
society  to  remain  ever  under  the  regimen  of  their  barbarous 
ancestors.  It  is  this  preposterous  idea  which  has  lately  deluged 
Europe  in  blood.  Their  monarchs,  instead  of  wisely  yielding  to 
the  gradual  changes  of  circumstances,  of  favoring  progressive 
accommodation  to  progressive  improvement,  have  clung  to  old 
abuses,  entrenched  themselves  behind  steady  habits,  and  obliged 
their  subjects  to  seek  through  blood  and  violence  rash  and  ruin¬ 
ous  innovations,  which,  had  they  been  referred  to  the  peaceful 
deliberations  and  collected  wisdom  of  the  nation,  would  have 
been  put  into  acceptable  and  salutary  forms. 

Let  us  follow  no  such  examples,  nor  weakly  believe  that  one 
generation  is  not  as  capable  as  another  of  taking  care  of  it¬ 
self,  and  of  ordering  its  own  affairs. ”  —Thomas  Jeferson. 

It  is  necessary  to  realize,  in  the  first  place, 
that  for  full  three  generations  past,  instead  of 
reading  history  and  studying  political  science, 
we  have  been  deeply  absorbed  in  the  great  work 
of  rearing  a  Nation  upon  the  secure  foundations 
which  our  fathers  laid  for  us.  Within  one  cen- 


90 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


tury  of  time,  also,  we  have  outstripped  all  rec¬ 
ords  in  nation-building  since  the  rise  and  fall  of 
the  Roman  Republic,  full  fourteen  centuries  ago. 
For  it  is  simple  truth  to  say  that  not  a  nation  in 
Europe  can  now  compare  with  the  United  States 
in  power,  in  wealth,  and  in  advantages.  That 
fact  is  evidence  in  plenty  that  we  have  been 
profitably  employed.  But  absorbed  in  the  vast 
work,  and  intent  upon  individual  interests,  we 
have  forgotten  the  past;  we  have  become  con¬ 
fused  as  to  the  essential  difference  between  the 
democratic  institutions  of  America  and  the  aris¬ 
tocratic  institutions  of  Europe;  and  since  the 
Civil  War  loaded  us  with  debt  and  taxes,  we 
have  heedlessly  permitted  the  promoters  of 
legislative  privilege  to  confuse  the  minds  of  the 
people,  to  poison  and  corrupt  our  political  life, 
and  then  to  enrich  themselves  beyond  the  earthly 
dreams  of  kings  and  princes— And  they  have  done 
it  by  sedulously  teaching  political  doctrines 
which  are  distinctly  European  and  dangerously 
un-American ;  doctrines  which  our  fathers 
flatly  repudiated,  first  in  Jefferson’s  time,  next 
in  Jackson’s  time,  and  then  again  in  Lincoln’s 
time. 

The  Revolutionary  patriots  did  indeed  free  us 
from  the  curse  of  a  legalized  and  titled  aristoc¬ 
racy,  resting  securely  upon  the  feudal  system  of 
primogeniture  and  entailed  estates  in  land.  But 
they  entrusted  to  our  keeping  unlimited  power 
to  create  a  moneyed  aristocracy  through  special 
legislation— and  that  is  precisely  what  we  have 
done ! 

Through  Protection  legislation  we  have  ere- 


OUTLINES  OF  PRESENT-DAY  PROBLEMS.  91 

ated  moneyed  princes  of  the  manufacturing 
world,  with  power  to  lay  tribute  upon  practically 
every  article  that  enters  into  factory  production 

and  home  consumption. 

Through  pipe-line  franchises  we  have  created 
moneyed  marquises  of  the  petroleum  industry, 
who  enjoy  a  monopoly  of  our  oil  wells,  and  lay 
tribute  upon  every  lamp  that  lights  the  homes  of 

the  poor. 

Through  railroad  franchises  we  have  created 
moneyed  lords  of  the  transportation  world,  with 
power  to  lay  tribute  upon  every  ton  of  freight 
that  is  moved  and  every  passenger  who  travels. 

Through  coal  mining  charters  we  have  created 
moneyed  barons,  with  power  to  restrict  the  out¬ 
put,  to  regulate  miners’  wages,  and  to  lay  heavy 
tribute  upon  every  ton  of  anthracite  that  is  con¬ 
sumed. 

Through  telegraph,  telephone,  street  railway, 
and  other  municipal  franchises,  we  have  created 
a  numerous  order  of  moneyed  Sir  Knights,  who 
do  nimble  and  daring  work  with  city  councils  in 
laying  tribute  upon  every  urban  dweller. 

And  finally,  through  land  grants  and  tricky 
titles,  we  have  temporarily  deeded  away  the  Na¬ 
tion’s  richest  heritage— our  vast  Public  Domain, 
which  is  now  fenced  in  and  tightly  “held  for  a 
rise,”  contrary  to  the  very  letter  and  spirit  of  all 
our  laws  providing  specifically  for  homestead 
settlement  and  actual  occupancy  and  use. 

Instantly  the  practical  man  of  business  will  be 
prompted  to  observe!  “But  it  was  fi6C6Ssciyy  to 
grant  these  franchises.  People  may  differ  about 
the  necessity  for  Protection;  but  certainly  there 


92 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


can  be  no  difference  about  tbe  necessity  for 
granting  franchises  to  railroads,  street  railways, 
and  all  other  public  utilities.  Without  the  fran¬ 
chises  we  could  have  no  transportation  facilities. 
So,  too,  without  franchises  for  great  corpora¬ 
tions,  we  could  not  possibly  have  built-up  the 
vast  mining  and  manufacturing  industries  which 
now  give  our  people  profitable  employment.” 

Precisely  so. 

Now  let  us  clear  up  some  essential  points. 

The  people,  in  their  sovereign  power,  have 
granted  these  franchises;  and  hence  the  people 
have  an  ethical,  legal,  and  absolute  right  to  regu¬ 
late  the  conduct  of  these  enterprises.  Eecent  ad¬ 
vances  in  civilization  have  made  it  evident  that 
we  now  require  public  servants— corporations— 
to  administer  public  utilities,  much  the  same  as 
we  require  public  servants  to  collect  taxes,  to 
administer  justice,  and  to  preserve  order. 
It  is  this  fact— the  obvious  need  of  govern¬ 
mental  control— which  forms  the  basis  of  that 
dreamy  philosophy  of  “government  ownership,” 
oi  German  socialism,  which  Henry  George  and 
Edward  Bellamy  did  so  much  to  popularize  in 
liberty-loving  America.  But  George  and  Bel- 
lamy  were  simply  behind  the  age — full  twenty 
centuries  behind  the  constructive  statesmen  who 

framed  American  institutions,  as  we  shall  soon 
see. 

In  feudal  times  the  collection  of  taxes  and  the 
administration  of  government  was  so  vitally  im¬ 
portant,  so  highly  honorable,  and  so  extremely 
profitable  as  a  pursuit,  that  the  strong  men  of 
those  times  monopolized  the  business  exclusively 


OUTLINES  OF  PKESENT-DAY  PKOBLEMS.  93 

for  themselves  and  their  families.  They  made 
the  offices  hereditary ;  they  affixed  a  distinguished 
title  to  each  office;  they  entailed  their  great 
landed  estates;  they  hired  armies  of  retainers 
who  were  well-paid  to  defend  their  possessions ; 
and  then  to  the  people  they  said  in  effect :  ‘ 4  This 
is  our  business — All  of  this  is  our  property  We 
are  managing  it  on  a  community-of -interest  plan 
— Which  means  simply  that  when  men  own  prop¬ 
erty  they  can  do  what  they  like  with  it  ‘The 
public  be  damned.’  ” 

4 ‘The  mills  of  the  gods  grind  slowly; 

But  they  grind  exceeding  small.  ” 

The  political  history  of  all  Europe  is  neither 
more  nor  less  than  a  bloody  record  of  the  age¬ 
long  strife  which  the  people  have  had  to  wage  in 
order  to  amend  that  system,  and  to  secure  at  least 
some  share  in  the  important  business  of  taxing 
and  governing  themselves.  But  the  history  of 
America  is  quite  another  story.  We  are  bred  of 
a  race  of  freemen  who  grimly  determined  three 
centuries  ago  that  they  would  not  tolerate  the 
tyranny  of  any  such  system.  And  from  the  day 
the  first-comers  landed  in  Virginia  in  1607,  down 
to  this  hour,  the  business  of  learning  just  how  to 
govern  ourselves  has  been  going  steadily  for¬ 
ward. 

The  Revolution  gave  the  strong  men  of  our 
race  the  opportunity  for  which  they  had  been 
planning  and  waiting.  Then  it  was  that  they 
wiped  from  our  constitutions  and  our  statute 
books  every  trace  of  feudal  aristocracy.  Then 
it  was  that  they  made  majority  rule  the  one 


94 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


supreme  law  of  the  land.  And  then  it  was  that 
they  made  public  officers  neither  more  nor  less 
than  public  servants. 

One  other  thing  they  did,  of  supremest  moment 
and  importance  to  themselves— and  to  us!  To 
make  absolutely  sure  that  public  servants  might 
not  betray  public  trust,  and  thereby  enrich  them¬ 
selves  at  the  people’s  expense,  it  was  prescribed 
with  scrupulous  care  that  accurate  accounts 
should  be  kept  of  all  cash  receipts  and  all  cash 
expenditures ;  and  further,  that  at  frequent  inter¬ 
vals  detailed  and  sworn  statements  of  these  re¬ 
ceipts  and  expenditures  should  be  printed  and 
published  for  the  information  of  the  whole  peo¬ 
ple.  Beyond  this,  to  make  doubly  sure  that  the 
people  might  not  be  betrayed  by  able  men  intent 
upon  winning  political  power  as  a  means  of  per¬ 
sonal  profit,  they  wisely  provided  that  public 
officers  should  be  elected  for  short  terms  only; 
and  at  the  end  of  each  term  should  be  called  to 
strict  account  at  the  people’s  ballot  box. 

Now  for  some  illuminating  history! 

The  new  system,  thus  established,  was  no 
sooner  under  way  than  the  feudal  aristocrats, 
still  among  us  and  brilliantly  led  by  Alexander 
Hamilton,  began  at  once  to  plot  and  scheme  to 
fasten  themselves  upon  the  people  once  more. 
And  to  get  control  of  the  banking  facilities  and 
money  of  the  people  was  the  immediate  object  of 
their  attack.  They  promptly  secured  from  Con¬ 
gress  a  charter  for  the  famous  Bank  of  the 
United  States— a  great  central  corporation,  with 
such  exclusive  privileges  and  large  powers,  that 
it  dominated  both  public  and  private  credit  and 


OUTLINES  OF  PRESENT-DAY  PROBLEMS.  95 

of  course  controlled  the  volume  of  legalized  pa¬ 
per  money.  In  the  succeeding  chapter  I  shall 
show  how  Jefferson  foresaw  and  overcame  the 
immediate  dangers  of  this  perilous  monopoly; 
but  owing  to  the  grave  troubles  growing  out  of 
the  war  of  1812,  the  Bank  secured  a  renewal  of 
its  charter  under  Madison’s  administration;  and 
by  the  time  Jackson  came  to  the  Presidency  in 
1828,  it  had  become  so  powerful  in  politics,  as 
well  as  in  business,  that,  in  Jackson’s  striking 
phrase,  the  issue  was  simply: 

“Shall  the  Bank,  or  the  people  rule?” 

That  contest  was  settled  as  it  should  have  been 

_ by  refusing  to  renew  the  Bank  charter.  But 

in  accomplishing  the  necessary  work  of  break¬ 
ing  up  so  perilous  a  monopoly,  our  finances  were 
thrown  into  confusion;  numerous  small  State 
banks  were  chartered  in  all  parts  of  the  country ; 
no  effective  steps  were  taken  to  provide  national 
supervision  of  bank-note  issues ;  and  thus  we 
were  plunged  into  our  first  great  panic— that  of 
1837.  The  leading  State  banks,  however,  prompt¬ 
ly  resumed  specie  payments;  and  profiting  by 
the  lessons  of  the  panic  they  gave  the  country  a 
safe  and  adequate  volume  of  bank  notes,  which 
aided  greatly  in  making  the  wonderful  era  of 
prosperity  and  development  that  the  country  en¬ 
joyed  from  1840  to  1857.  But  men  will  forget. 
Young  men  rarely  profit  by  the  experience  of  old 
men.  State  banks  multiplied,  and  bank  notes  of 
uncertain  and  speculative  value  increased  stead¬ 
ily.  Thus  we  were  led  straight  on  to  the  ‘  ‘  wild¬ 
cat”  and  “red  dog”  issues  of  paper  money, 


96 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


which,  with  the  mad  speculation  of  the  early  era 
of  railroad  building,  plunged  us  into  our  second 
great  panic  of  1857. 

It  was  the  lessons  of  this  second  financial  disas¬ 
ter,  and  the  utter  chaos  of  our  national  finances 
during  the  Civil  War,  that  gave  Salmon  P.  Chase 
his  golden  opportunity.  And  it  was  the  genius 
of  Chase— everlasting  honor  to  his  patriot 
name! — that  gave  us  the  longest  forward  stride 
in  constructive  statesmanship  since  Jefferson’s 
time.  In  a  later  chapter  I  shall  show  why  and 
how  our  national  banking  system  now  offers  an 
easy  and  lasting  solution  of  our  entire  problem 
of  money  and  finance.  But  here,  we  are  con¬ 
cerned  only  with  the  similarity— the  precise 
identity — of  banking  charters  to  franchises  for 
railroads  and  all  industrial  corporations  engaged 
in  interstate  commerce. 

Chase  saw  clearly  that  money  is  the  very  life¬ 
blood  of  the  nation’s  commerce  and  industry,  and 
hence  that  it  must  be  controlled  and  regulated  by 
the  national  government.  He  also  saw  that  bank¬ 
ing  was  not  a  legitimate  function  of  government ; 
that  a  great  central  Bank  had  proved  dangerous 
to  our  free  institutions ;  that  the  government 
must  be  kept  out  of  the  banking  business ;  and 
that  those  who  issue  the  people’s  money  must  be 
held  to  strict  accountability  in  the  public  prints 
— precisely  as  we  hold  tax  collectors ,  public  of¬ 
ficials,  and  all  other  public  servants  to  strict  ac¬ 
countability. 

Genius  and  great  statesman  that  he  was,  Chase 
solved  the  knotty  problem  by  securing  the  pas¬ 
sage  of  a  law  which  grants  to  groups  of  individu- 


OUTLINES  OF  PRESENT-DAY  PROBLEMS.  97 


als— corporations— charters  to  engage  in  the 
banking  business,  and  to  issue  paper  money, 
under  these  conditions:  (1)  that  every  bank  note 
shall  be  secured  by  bonds  deposited  in  the  na¬ 
tional  Treasury;  (2)  that  at  all  times  the  books 
of  these  national  banks  shall  be  open  to  the  in¬ 
spection  of  “bank  examiners”  employed  by  the 
people;  and  (3)  that  whenever  the  Comptroller 
of  the  Currency  sees  fit  to  order  it,  statements  of 
the  condition  of  these  banks  shall  be  published  in 
the  newspapers. 

Publicity !  Publicity ! !  Publicity ! ! ! 

Since  Chase’s  day,  new  problems  in  govern¬ 
ment  have  presented  themselves.  The  advance 
in  science,  the  evolution  of  industrial  methods, 
and  the  complete  revolution  in  all  means  of  quick 
communication  and  rapid  transit,  have  made  it 
perfectly  evident  that  the  public  welfare  demands 
the  creation  and  service  of  corporations  of  im¬ 
mense  capital  and  vast  power.  Seeing  these 
needs,  the  people  have,  from  time  to  time,  freely 
granted  to  industrial  and  commercial  enterprises, 
and  public-service  corporations,  valuable  fran¬ 
chises,  carrying  with  them  all  the  powers  neces¬ 
sary  to  insure  the  free  play  of  individual  initia¬ 
tive  in  meeting  the  demands  of  the  people. 
Under  these  franchises,  numerous  great  corpora¬ 
tions,  really  in  the  service  of  the  people,  have 
been  created.  But  up  to  this  time,  no  effective 
provisions  have  been  made  for  calling  the  offi¬ 
cials  of  these  corporations  to  account ! 

The  men  who  have  captured  control,  the  “in¬ 
siders,”  conduct  these  corporations  precisely  as 
individuals  conduct  private  business.  They 


98 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


resent,  and  resist  to  the  utmost,  every  effort  at 
public  inquiry  into  their  abuses  of  administra¬ 
tion.  They  refuse  stockholders  and  investors— 
proprietors— the  information  needful  to  forming 
an  intelligent  estimate  of  the  value  of  the  shares. 
They  pay  dividends  when  and  in  whatever 
amount  they  choose.  They  manipulate  the  share 
capital  absolutely  without  restriction.  Within 
the  past  five  years  they  have  issued  watered  stock 
mounting  into  billions  of  dollars,  upon  which  the 
public  is  now  expected  to  pay  interest  and  divi¬ 
dends.  Through  secret,  often  unlawful,  conspira¬ 
cies  they  freely  exercise  arbitrary  power  in 
granting  rebates  to  favorite  interests,  and  in  fix¬ 
ing  freight  rates,  passenger  rates,  street  railway 
fares,  the  cost  of  telephone,  telegraph,  electric 
light  and  other  public  service.  By  reason  of 
their  personal,  irresponsible,  and  despotic  power, 
even  railway  officials  and  employees  do  not  dare 
to  disclose  overwhelming  evidence  of  shameless 
and  criminal  abuses  in  the  manipulation  and  con¬ 
duct  of  corporations  chartered  solely  for  the 
service  of  the  people.  And  inside  our  tariff  wall, 
for  years  past  they  have  absolutely  controlled 
the  price  of  practically  every  staple  of  produc¬ 
tive  industry,  and  hundreds  of  articles  of  home 
consumption.  In  short,  through  public  fran¬ 
chises  granted  by  the  people,  we  have  permitted 
small  groups  of  men  to  exercise  tyrannous  and 
despotic  power  over  the  fortunes,  the  happiness, 
and  the  peaceful  pursuits  of  millions  of  American 
freemen;  and  since  history  but  repeats  itself, 


OUTLINES  OF  PRESENT-DAY  PROBLEMS.  99 

these  same  men,  before  our  very  eyes,  have  acted 
squarely  upon  the  principle  and  precept  of  the 
barons  of  the  middle  ages : 

‘  ‘  The  good  old  rule,  the  simple  plan : 

That  they  shall  take,  who  have  the  power, 

And  they  shall  keep  who  can.  7 1 

By  reason  of  vast  wealth  thus  accumulated, 
and  by  reason  of  the  despotic  power  which  they 
wield  with  silent,  secret,  and  deadly  precision, 
we  now  see  press  and  pulpit  treating  them  with 
trembling  deference  and  respect;  we  see  Presi¬ 
dents,  legislators,  judges,  and  all  aspiring  poli¬ 
ticians  openly  fawning  for  their  favor;  we  see 
our  ablest  men  in  professional  and  business  life 
struggling  in  eager  rivalry  to  win  the  rich  prizes 
of  recognition  and  profit  which  they  have  to  dis¬ 
pense;  and  we  see  kings  and  courts  of  Europe 
conferring  upon  them  the  most  distinguished  at¬ 
tentions.  Little  wonder  that  monstrosities  of 
money  greed  should  regard  themselves  as  the 
elect  of  our  kind;  and  no  wonder  at  all  that  they 
account  their  millions  won  in  Wall  Street  as  the 
reward  which  society  rightfully  bestows  upon  its 
“master  minds”— its  wonder-working  Captains 
of  Finance ! 

But  as  the  result  of  this  system— or  lack  of 
system;  as  the  natural,  logical,  and  inevitable 
outcome  of  legislation  for  the  exclusive  benefit 
of  a  few  at  the  direct  expense  of  the  many,  we  are 
now  confronted  by  the  most  appalling  contrasts 
in  social  conditions  ever  known  in  American  his¬ 
tory-contrasts  which  simply  amaze  and  con¬ 
found  intelligent  Europeans  who  come  to  study 


100 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


our  achievements  and  who  are  familiar  with  our 
past  history. 

Upon  the  one  hand,  we  have  a  few  men  in  pos¬ 
session  of  wealth  and  power  which  staggers  the 
imagination  and  spreads  the  gravest  alarm;  we 
have  a  fashionable  society  of  the  vulgar  rich  who 
live  in  regal  splendor,  “competing  with  each 
other  in  contests  of  ostentation’ ’  and  aping  the 
worst  forms  of  degenerate  European  aristocracy; 
we  have  heads  of  families  whose  highest  hope  is 
to  buy  impoverished  foreign  titles,  with  Ameri¬ 
can  maidens  as  the  sorry  victims;  we  have  a 
“smart  set”  who  till  the  newspapers  with  sensa¬ 
tional  tales  of  intrigue,  divorce,  and  scandal — 
“a  more  contemptible  crew  never  played  their 
pranks  before  high  heaven;”  we  have  shoals  of 
silly  rich  people  in  Boston,  in  New  York,  and  in 
Washington,  who  are  now  thinking,  and  saying, 
that  our  institutions  are  insecure  and  we  shall 
have  to  go  back  to  some  form  of  monarchy  or 
“strong  government”;  and  we  have  one  insuffer¬ 
able  millionaire  who  literally  outdoes  Barnum 
in  spectacular  self-advertisement— a  man  who 
brazenly  preaches  poverty  for  other  people  while 
living  in  lordly  splendor  in  his  Scottish  castle; 
who  lectures  fashionable  society  on  the  evils  of 
vain  show,  and  then  “flabbergasts”  the  Four 
Hundred  by  exchanging  hospitalities  with  his 
King ;  who  makes  a  business  of  benevolence  while 
he  shames  the  face  of  sweet  charity  with  sensa¬ 
tional  giving;  who  “cultivates  his  soul”  in 
widely-heralded  and  solemn  public  services  to 
dedicate  millions  in  godless  money  or  monuments 
of  masonry  boldly  branded  with  his  name;  and 


OUTLINES  OF  PRESENT-DAY  PROBLEMS.  101 

who,  all  the  while,  leads  the  van  of  political  cor¬ 
ruption  by  adroitly  preaching  Protection  for 
America,  where  he  makes  his  money,  and  preach¬ 
ing  Free  Trade  for  Britain,  where  he  makes  his 
home. 


“Beware  of  false  prophets,  which  come  to 
you  in  sheep ’s  clothing,  but  inwardly  they  are 
ravening  wolves. 1  ’ 

Upon  the  other  hand— heaven  forgive  our  sel¬ 
fish  negligence !— we  have  millions  of  free-born 
American  men,  women,  and  helpless  little  chil¬ 
dren  who  spend  their  lives  in  dire  struggle  for 
bare  necessities,  with  grim  want  ever  haunting 
the  future;  we  have  tens  of  thousands  who  are 
annually  plunged  into  the  gulf  of  pauperism 
itself;  we  have  thousands  of  noble  men  and 
women  whose  sympathies  have  impelled  them 
to  become  trained  experts  in  the  systematic  and 
steady  work  of  administering  needed  charity ;  we 
have  a  sinful  and  awful  record  of  increasing 
pauperism,  insanity,  crime,  and  suicide,  which 
has  been  rising  by  leaps  and  bounds ,  while  aristo¬ 
cratic  and  monarchical  Europe  has  checked  the 
increase  and  faced  the  need  for  better  conditions ; 
and  worst  of  all,  as  a  Nation  of  eighty  million 
freemen,  in  secure  possession  of  the  richest  and 
proudest  heritage  ever  left  to  mankind,  we  have 
been  so  scourged  by  panic  and  long  periods  of 
depression,  that  most  of  our  leaders  shiver  with 
cowardly  fear  before  the  brutal  and  senseless 
threats  of  the  brazen  millionaires  who  tell  us  that 
another  panic  is  inevitable  if  we  touch  the  tariff 
or  fail  to  renew  their  lease  of  power! 


102 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


Whole  libraries  have  been  written  about  the 
appalling  increase  of  pauperism  which  has  come 
upon  us  since  the  Civil  War,  and  the  ghastly 
story  parades  itself  so  continually  in  the  news¬ 
papers  that  we  have  become  hardened  to  it— have 
come  to  feel  that  the  curse  is  chronic  and  inevi¬ 
table.  But  the  strong  men  who  framed  American 
institutions  entertained  no  such  stupid  and  in¬ 
sufferable  ideas.  Their  plain  purpose  was  none 
other  than  to  free  us,  as  they  freed  themselves, 
from  precisely  those  conditions  which  now  so 
afflict  the  poor  and  so  affright  the  timid. 

Witness  this  from  the  inspiring  Introduction 
which  George  Bancroft  wrote  for  his  great  His¬ 
tory  of  the  United  States  when  he  published  it  in 
1834: 

11  While  the  nations  of  Europe  aspire  for  change,  our  con¬ 
stitution  engages  the  fond  admiration  of  the  people,  by  which 
it  has  been  established.  Prosperity  follows  the  execution  of 
even  justice;  invention  is  quickened  by  the  freedom  of  com¬ 
petition;  and  labor  rewarded  with  sure  and  unexampled  re¬ 
turns.  ...  A  gallant  navy  protects  our  commerce,  which 
spreads  its  banners  on  every  sea,  and  extends  its  enterprise  to 
every  clime.  .  .  .  Every  man  may  enjoy  the  fruits  of  his 
industry;  every  mind  is  free  to  publish  its  convictions.  .  .  . 
New  States  are  forming  in  the  wilderness;  canals,  intersect¬ 
ing  our  plains  and  crossing  our  highlands,  open  numerous 
channels  to  internal  commerce ;  manufacturers  prosper  along 
our  water  courses;  the  use  of  steam  on  our  rivers  and  railroads 
annihilates  distance  by  the  acceleration  of  speed.  Our  wealth 
and  population,  already  giving  us  a  place  in  the  first  rank  of 
nations,  are  so  rapidly  cumulative  that  the  former  is  increased 
four-fold,  and  the  latter  is  doubled,  in  every  period  of  twenty- 
two  or  twenty-three  years.  There  is  no  national  debt,  the  gov¬ 
ernment  is  economical,  and  the  public  treasury  full.  .  .  . 
There  are  more  daily  journals  in  the  United  States  than  in  the 
world  beside.  .  .  .  Other  governments  are  convulsed  by  the 


OUTLINES  OF  PRESENT-DAY  PROBLEMS.  103 

innovations  and  reforms  of  neighboring  states;  our  constitu¬ 
tion,  fixed  in  the  affections  of  the  people,  from  whose  choice  it 
has  sprung,  neutralizes  the  influence  of  foreign  principles,  and 
fearlessly  opens  an  asylum  to  the  virtuous,  the  unfortunate, 
and  the  oppressed  of  every  nation. 7 7 

And  witness  this  unequivocal  testimony  by  the 
great  French  philosopher,  M.  de  Tocqueville, 
who  made  a  prolonged  stay  for  study  and  obser¬ 
vation  among  us  while  Andrew  Jackson  was  mak¬ 
ing  immortal  history  in  the  White  House ;  and 
who  then  went  home  to  write  a  book — “Democ¬ 
racy  in  America”— which  every  thinking  Ameri¬ 
can  now  needs  to  study  closely : 

‘‘In  America  I  saw  the  freest  and  most  enlightened  men, 
placed  in  the  happiest  circumstances  that  the  world  affords. 

‘  ‘  Almost  all  the  Americans  are  in  easy  circumstances,  and  can 
therefore  obtain  the  first  elements  of  human  knowledge  .... 
there  are  comparatively  few  who  are  rich  enough  to  live  without 

a  profession. 7 ; 

‘  ‘  In  the  United  States  I  never  heard  of  a  man  spending  his 
wealth  to  corrupt  the  populace.77 

“In  America,  those  complaints  against  property  in  general, 
which  are  so  frequent  in  Europe,  are  never  heard;  because  in 
America  there  arc  no  paupers;  and  as  every  one  has  property  of 
his  own  to  defend,  every  one  recognizes  the  principle  upon  which 

he  holds  it. 7  7 

“I  never  met  in  America  with  any  citizen  so  poor  as  not  to 
cast  a  glance  of  hope  and  envy  on  the  enjoyments  of  the  rich,  or 
whose  imagination  did  not  possess  itself  by  anticipation  of  those 

good  things  which  fate  still  obstinately  withheld  from  him. 

—iff.  de  Tocqueville  in  1835. 

So  many  men  and  women  still  living,  and  in 
full  possession  of  all  their  faculties,  can  give 


104 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


verbal  testimony  to  the  astonishing1  change  which 
has  come  over  American  society  since  the  Civil 
War,  that  it  will  not  be  necessary  for  me  to  go 
into  lengthy  details  to  prove  the  contrast.  In 
one  brief  chapter,  following  this,  I  shall  present 
evidence  which  onght  to  be  enough  to  silence  the 
loud-mouthed  and  shameless  demagogues  who  go 
about  boasting  that  the  American  people  are  more 
prosperous  than  ever  before  in  their  history. 
That  is  untrue!  And  because  it  is  untrue,  be¬ 
cause  millions  of  free  men,  free  women,  and  little 
children  who  ought  to  be  free,  have  suffered,  and 
still  suffer,  oppression  and  injustice  which  their 
fathers  never  knew— for  full  thirty  years  past  the 
political  and  industrial  atmosphere  of  the  United 
States  has  been  a  storm-center  of  angry,  impas¬ 
sioned,  and  desperate  conflict  over  the' wildest 
theories  of  reform  that  have  ever  been  presented 

for  the  consideration  of  an  intelligent,  thinking 
people. 

First  we  had  the  greenback  craze,  raging  at  its 
height  in  18 7 4,  and  in  obedience  to  which  a  Re¬ 
publican  Congress  passed  a  bill  which  would  have 
plunged  us  into  an  abyss  of  paper  money  in¬ 
flation,  had  not  President  Grant — brave  soldier 
and  great  General  that  he  was!— vetoed  the  bill. 
In  a  latei  chapter  I  shall  show  that  the  green¬ 
backs  gave  us  the  panic  of  1873,  and  the  resump¬ 
tion  of  specie  payments  gave  us  the  great  boom 
of  1880-90. 

But  the  fiat-money  fallacy  was  far  from  dead ; 
and  seeing  this,  the  silver  miners  of  the  West 
promptly  began  their  propaganda.  Being 
strongly  represented  in  both  Senate  and  House, 


OUTLINES  OF  PRESENT-DAY  PROBLEMS.  105 

they  simply  traded  favors  with  the  Protection 
schemers  of  the  East.  The  Republican  Congress 
of  1878  passed  the  Bland- Allison  act;  and  the 
Republican  Congress  of  1890  passed  the  Sherman 
Silver  Coinage  law— the  latter  being  the  price 
deliberately  paid  to  the  silver  miners  for  votes 
enough  to  pass  the  McKinley  bill.  Thus,  the 
panic  of  1893,  and  the  free-silver  craze  which  fol¬ 
lowed  it,  were  the  direct,  obvious,  and  inevitable 
outcome  of  Congressional  favors  granted  to  spe¬ 
cial  interests — at  the  people’s  incalculable  cost! 

Hand  in  hand  with  the  greenback  craze,  we 
had  the  rise  of  the  Granger  movement,  which 
thanks  to  ex-Senator  Reagan  and  the  farmers  of 
the  great  Middle  West,  happily  resulted  in  the 
creation  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commis¬ 
sion— the  wisest,  most  far-reaching,  and  most 
fundamental  measure  of  reform  that  has 
been  enacted  since  the  genius  of  Salmon  P.  Chase 
gave  us  our  National  Banking  System. 

1 1  Cultivators  of  the  earth  are  the  most 
valuable  citizens.  They  are  the  most  vigor¬ 
ous,  the  most  independent,  the  most  virtuous, 
and  they  are  tied  to  their  country  and  wedded 
to  its  liberty  and  interest  by  the  most  lasting 
bonds.  ”  — Thomas  Jefferson. 

In  1877  we  had  the  awful  railroad  riots,  in¬ 
augurating  the  movement  for  local,  state  and 
national  organization  among  skilled  working- 
men,  and  marking  the  beginning  of  a  distinctly 
new  era  of  desperate,  dangerous,  and  costly  labor 
strikes— the  end  of  which  can  never  come  unless 
both  employers  and  labor  leaders  squarely  rec¬ 
ognize  that  fair  play,  and  frank  and  friendly  arbi- 


106  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

tration  of  differences,  are  the  only  means  to  in¬ 
dustrial  peace  while  we  are  passing  through  this 
era  of  formidable  and  aggressive  combinations 
of  capital  and  labor.  We  shall  be  rid  of  it  all  in 
good  time;  but  meanwhile,  patience,  politeness, 
and  manly  self-control,  should  be  the  watchwords 
of  thinking  freemen  who  are  on  the  fighting  line. 
Every  appeal  to  coercion  and  force  is  a  mistake 
—a  deplorable  calamity— because  it  serves  only 
to  tighten  the  grip  of  the  scheming  millionaires. 
We  must  preserve  order  at  any  cost  or  conse¬ 
quence.  Our  fathers  did  the  fighting.  Now 
let  us  be  brave  enough  to  do  the  thinking— be 
strong  enough  to  hold  ourselves  until  monopoly 
shall  be  unhorsed  at  the  ballot  box.  For  obvi¬ 
ously  the  common  enemy  of  working  employers 
and  all  working  men,  is  now  the  Wall  Street 
crowd,  whose  minions  in  our  “combination” 
Senate— notably  Aldrich  and  Lodge,  Platt  and 
Depew,  Quay  and  Penrose,  Hanna  and  Foraker, 
Frye  and  Hale,  Elkins  and  Scott— deliberately 
block  and  manipulate  every  move  in  our  national 
legislation  and  national  politics. 

The  Henry  George  movement  began  about 
1883,  shortly  after  he  published  his  books,  and 
it  culminated  in  1886  when  he  was  nominated  for 
Mayor  of  New  York  City.  During  the  progress 
of  that  movement  Socialism,  or  the  theory  of 
government  ownership,  began  to  assume  promi¬ 
nence  ;  and  its  impracticable  theories  are  the  ones 
which  to-day,  do  most  to  confuse  the  minds  of 
earnest,  honest,  and  public-spirited  Americans. 
The  Anarchists  began  to  make  themselves  heard 
about  1885,  and  their  teaching  entailed  the  fright- 


OUTLINES  OF  PRESENT-DAY  PROBLEMS.  107 

ful  tragedies  enacted  in  Chicago,  and  at  Home¬ 
stead,  finally  culminating  in  the  cold-blooded  and 
awful  assassination  of  a  President. 

Biblical  history,  Greek  and  Homan  history, 
European  history,  and  all  the  libraries  of  politi¬ 
cal  and  economic  history,  ancient  and  modern, 
have  been  heavily  drawn  upon  to  supply  inspira¬ 
tion  and  literature  for  this  astonishing  propa¬ 
ganda  of  pure  theory.  But  nowhere  have  I  been 
able  to  find  among  the  reformers  even  one 
thinker,  writer,  or  active  worker,  who  seems  to 
appreciate  the  perfectly  obvious  fact  that  our 
Revolutionary  fathers  wrought  into  our  Consti¬ 
tution  and  wrote  into  our  statute  laws,  the  most 
fundamental,  radical,  and  far-reaching  reforms 
that  have  ever  been  achieved  at  a  given  time  in 
the  world’s  history  of  political  science. 

‘ ‘  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is 
the  most  wonderful  work  ever  struck  off  at  a 
given  time  by  the  brain  and  purpose  of  man.  ’  ’ 

— Gladstone. 

In  consequence  of  this  neglect  of  American  his¬ 
tory,  and  in  consequence  of  the  utter  confusion  of 
thought  now  current,  we  have  Mr.  Jerome,  the 
courageous  and  honest  reformer,  bravely  telling 
us  that: 


‘‘The  great  fakir  Jefferson  said  men  were 
born  equal.  I  say  that  many  are  not  born 
equal;  and  God  forbid  the  time  when  there 
are  not  better,  purer,  wiser  people  than  we 
are,  to  go  to  for  inspiration  and  courage.” 


Dr.  Felix  Adler,  founder  and  leader  of  the 


108 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


Ethical  Culture  Society,  immediately  responds 
by  telling  us  that: 

i  1  There  is  a  false  and  a  true  Democracy. 

The  false  declares  that  all  men  are  equal.  This 
is  untrue,  and  neither  a  government  nor  a  so¬ 
ciety  can  be  built  upon  its  fiction.  ” 

These  two  gentlemen  will  doubtless  be  sur¬ 
prised  upon  learning  that  the  Continental  Con¬ 
gress  was  a  legal  body ;  that  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  was  a  legal  document;  and  that  the 
equality  which  it  proclaimed  was  equality  before 
the  LAW.  .For  in.  that  day  Royalty  maintained 
among  us  institutions  giving  a  monarch  and  a 
titled  aristocracy  legal  privileges  denied  to  other 
men— precisely  as  in  this  day  our  ruling  million¬ 
aires  enjoy  princely  legal  privileges  which  have 
fabulously  enriched  the  few,  at  the  burdensome 
expense  of  the  many. 

Dr.  Lyman  Abbott,  the  gifted,  eloquent,  and 
altruistic  successor  to  Henry  Ward  Beecher  in 
the  Plymouth  pulpit,  seeing  no  other  hope,  tells 
the  students  at  Yale  that: 

Socialism  in  this  country  I  believe  to  be  irresistible,  and 
I  believe  that  it  ought  not  to  be  resisted.  Herbert  Spencer 
wrote  fifty  years  ago  that  Socialism  could  be  prevented  by 
nothing  but  civil  war,  bloodshed  and  despotism.  I  *do  not 
agree  with  this.  I  believe  that  this,  like  every  great  ques¬ 
tion,  will  be  debated  by  the  American  public  and  settled  with¬ 
out  bloodshed.  ” 

‘The  peril  to  America  is  not  in  the  greatness  of  the  organi¬ 
zation,  but  in  the  direction  which  it  shall  take.  Believe  me, 

this  movement  toward  organization  is  not  alone  irresistible  • 
it  is  beneficial.  ’  ’ 

You  are  both  right  and  wrong,  Dr.  Abbott: 


OUTLINES  OF  PRESENT-DAY  PROBLEMS.  109 


We  shall  debate  the  question,  and  we  shall  settle 
it  without  bloodshed.  But  instead  of  turning 
back  to  Plato,  who  lived  before  Christ  was  born, 
and  who  thought  and  wrote  for  a  civilization 
which  wrecked  itself  upon  the  rocks  and  shoals 
of  his  theories,  we  shall  simply  turn  back  to  see 
how  Samuel  Adams,  George  Mason,  Thomas 
Jefferson,  Andrew  Jackson,  and  Abraham  Lin¬ 
coln  met  and  mastered  grave  troubles  in  their 
time;  and  we  shall  fearlessly  follow  the  broad 
highway  which  they  cleared  for  us.  For  here 
were  the  great  apostles  of  “government  of  the 
people  by  the  people  and  for  the  people ;  ’  ’  here 
were  the  bold  thinkers  and  the  dauntless  leaders 
whose  genius  burned  with  determination  to  dem¬ 
onstrate  the  principle  of  equality  before  the 
law;  and  in  all  the  written  records  of  political 
history,  ancient  and  modern,  no  nobler  literature 
was  ever  penned,  and  no  grander  work  was  ever 
done  in  the  cause  of  liberty,  opportunity,  and  hu¬ 
man  happiness. 

Dr.  Newell  Dwight  Hillis,  the  brilliant  young 
divine  who  has  succeeded  Dr.  Abbott  in  Beecher’s 
pulpit,  gives  comfort  to  the  monopolists— gives 
Carnegie,  Rockefeller  and  Morgan  all  they  want 
—by  teaching  that  there  are  “combinations  of 
wealth  that  have  lessened  the  cost  of  produc¬ 
tion;”  and  then  proceeds  “to  make  a  plea  for  the 
non-union  man’s  right  to  be  a  non-union  man” 
—telling  us  that  80  per  cent,  of  our  workingmen 
are  outside  the  unions.  Does  it  occur  to  Dr.  Hillis 
that  the  men  composing  this  80  per  cent,  are  not 
only  independent  of  trades  unions,  but  would 
spurn  sympathetic  pleas  in  their  behalf?  Is  he 


110 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


aware  that  the  coal  barons  make  a  business  of 
importing  “scab”  labor  into  the  coal  regions,  for 
the  specific  purpose  of  forcing  wages  down 9 

1 1  In  that  unhappy  anthracite  country  the  employers  will 
tell  you  openly  and  with  unconscious  bravado,  that  they  must 
get  in  cheaper  and  cheaper  labor  to  keep  wages  down,  else  they 
could  make  no  money.  ’ ; 

“An  absurd  surplus  of  some  thirty  thousand  men  hangs 
about  the  mines,  and  every  attempt  that  they  have  made  to 
secure  the  real  advantages  of  organization  among  themselves  has 
been  fought  with  obstinate  ill  will  by  the  masters.  ’  ’ 

“It  is  true  that  the  presence  of  sixteen  nationalities,  many 
of  them  with  the  lowest  standard  of  living,  is  an  extremely 
annoying  fact,  but  the  employing  class  has  its  definite  re¬ 
sponsibilities  for  the  present  quality  of  miners.  Such  as  they 
are,  they  have  been  expressly  encouraged  to  come ,  in  order  to 
keep  wages  low.”  — John  Graham  Brooks. 

Clearly  Dr.  Hillis  has  been  deceived  into  mak¬ 
ing  a  plea  for  men,  women,  and  little  children 
who  would  gladly  flee  to  the  standard  of  their 
brave  brothers,  but  who  are  so  downtrodden,  so 
poverty-stricken,  that  dread  starvation  drives 
them  to  accept  work  at  any  wages  or  upon  any 
terms  that  may  be  offered!  For  although  Dr. 
Hillis  has  been  confused  by  false  testimony,  he  is 
yet  true  to  the  faith  which  inspires  him  with  the 
high  courage  needful  to  uttering  these  blistering 
truths : 

1  ‘  During  the  past  year  we  have  made  history  rapidly.  From 
combinations  of  wealth  that  have  lessened  the  cost  of  produc¬ 
tion,  we  have  gone  swiftly  to  combinations  for  plunder,  that 
represent  stock,  watered  indefinitely,  and  foisted  upon  the 
public  by  greedy  and  unscrupulous  stock  jugglers. 

“If  the  corporate  capitalists  could  honestly  say  in  the  sight 
of  men  and  God,  there  is  not  one  dollar  of  watered  stock  in 


OUTLINES  OF  PRESENT-DAY  PROBLEMS.  Ill 


these  mines  or  in  our  railway  stocks— the  dividend  is  paid  on 
the  absolute  cost— they  would  have  the  sympathy  of  all  the 

public. 

“The  time  has  come  for  selfish  capitalists,  growing  fat 
through  their  gains,  their  withholding  the  wage  of  the  poor,  and 
their  watering  of  stock,  to  stop  going  to  horse  shows  on  Sunday, 
to  give  up  their  wines  and  their  women,  and  their  deviltry  in 
general,  and  go  to  church,  fall  on  their  knees  and  make  restitu¬ 
tion  of  their  ill-gotten  gains,  saying,  ‘God  be  merciful  to  me, 
a  sinner.’  11 

Whitelaw  Reid,  editor  of  the  New  York  Trib¬ 
une,  national  organ  of  the  Protection  party,  late 
candidate  for  Vice-President,  late  Special  Envoy 
to  the  Coronation  of  King  Edward,  and  many 
times  a  millionaire  himself— Mr.  Reid  scores 
President  Roosevelt  for  his  action  in  settling  the 
coal  strike,  in  this  threatening  and  suggestive 
language : 

“Not  until  1865  was  it  even  established  throughout  the  United 
States  that  every  man  has  the  right  to  sell  his  own  labor;  and 
in  1902,  in  your  State  and  in  mine,  there  were  still  found  a 
great  many  men,  including  a  pitiful  number  of  exceptionally 
ignorant  or  emotional  clergymen,  and  some  people  called 
statesmen,  who  considered  such  a  right  so  doubtful  that  they 
were  not  ashamed  to  urge,  for  the  sake  of  peace,  and  coal,  that 
it  should  be  submitted  to  arbitration.  ’  ’ 

“If  our  form  of  government  is  the  best,  it  cannot  be  so  be¬ 
cause  it  is  the  cheapest.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  one  of  the  most 
expensive  in  the  world. 

“Our  form  of  government  cannot  be  the  best  because  it  is 
the  most  efficient.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  one  of  the  slowest  in 
the  world;  the  most  complicated,  cumbrous  and  limited. 

“We  are  the  oldest  republic  in  the  world  (save  those  so  small 
as  to  be  negligible),  but  our  years  do  not  cover  the  span  the 
Psalmist  assigned  to  two  human  lives,  while  those  of  the  mon¬ 
archies  and  despotisms  count  by  thousands.  Other  republics, 
long  since  passed  away,  have  lasted  as  long  as  we,  and  borne 
for  their  time  as  great  a  sway  in  the  world.  ’  ’ 


112 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


If  this  poor  boy  from  Ohio,  whose  man’s  mind 
is  so  pitifully  mystified  by  the  millions  he  now 
enjoys,  will  simply  look  up  the  record  of  what 
Samuel  Adams  did  in  Town-meeting  for  our  Tor¬ 
ies,  our  titled  aristocrats,  and  the  British  armies 
and  navies  in  Revolutionary  times;  and  then  if 
he  will  calculate  the  number  of  townships  and 
Town-meetings  in  the  United  States  to-day,  I 
fancy  his  ominous  fears  for  our  future  will  give 
place  to  a  conclusion  that,  come  what  may,  we 
can  probably  muster  enough  “embattled  farm¬ 
ers”  to  take  care  of  ourselves— in  spite  of  his 
teaching ! 

“There  are  two  subjects  which  I  shall  claim  a  right  to  further 
as  long  as  I  have  breath:  the  public  education  and  the  subdivi¬ 
sion  of  the  counties  into  wards  (townships).  I  consider  the  con¬ 
tinuance  of  Republican  government  as  absolutely  hanging  on 
these  two  hooks.  ” 

“Where  every  man  is  a  sharer  in  the  direction  of  his  ward 
republic  or  of  some  of  the  higher  ones,  and  feels  that  he  is  a 
participator  in  the  government  of  affairs,  not  merely  at  an  elec¬ 
tion  one  day  in  the  year,  but  every  day;  when  there  shall  not  be 
a  man  in  the  State  who  will  not  be  a  member  of  some  one  of  its 
councils,  great  or  small,  he  will  let  the  heart  be  torn  out  of  his 
body  sooner  than  his  power  be  wrested  from  him  by  a  Caesar  or 
Bonaparte.  ’*  — Thomas  Jefferson. 

Young  John  D.  Rockefeller,  Jr.,  reveals  some¬ 
thing  of  the  canker  of  conscience  now  steadily  at 
work  in  his  family  circle  by  telling  his  Sunday- 
school  scholars: 

“There  is  a  general  opinion  that  wealth  produces  happiness. 
Wealth  alone  cannot  produce  complete  happiness.  I  do  not 
care  who  the  man  is— or  how  much  worldly  success  he  has 
achieved— if  he  has  secured  his  success  along  selfish  lines  he 


OUTLINES  OF  PRESENT-DAY  PROBLEMS.  113 


is  not  entirely  happy.  To  secure  genuine  success  one  must 
make  his  life  a  useful  one  to  others  as  well  as  to  himself. 

“True  success,  and  every  man  should  appreciate  it,  is  not 
wealth,  but  the  influence  one  extends  over  others.  You  all  pos¬ 
sess  a  degree  of  influence  over  others — let  it  be  for  good.  The  man 
who  passes  away  leaving  a  good  influence,  has  won  far  greater 
success  than  the  rich  man  who  lives  only  in  himself.  ” 


Senator  Hoar,  who  has  devoted  a  long  lifetime 
to  the  advocacy  of  Protection  for  the  special 
benefit  of  his  Massachusetts  constituents,  tells  us 

•hi 

that : 

“The  whipping  post,  the  branding  on  the  forehead,  the  crop¬ 
ping  of  the  ears,  the  scourging  at  the  cart’s  tail,  are  light 
punishment  for  the  rich  man  who  would  debauch  a  state, 
whether  it  be  an  old  state  with  an  honorable  history,  or  a  young 
and  pure  state  in  the  beginning  of  its  history.” 

And  so  I  might  go  on  indefinitely,  multiplying 
extracts  from  public  addresses  reported  in  the 
newspapers,  to  show  the  astonishing  lack  of  in¬ 
formation,  the  utter  confusion  of  thought,  and 
the  widespread  misconception  of  American  insti¬ 
tutions  now  current.  But  enough  of  this  welter 
of  confusion. 

The  awful  extremes  of  wealth  and  pauperism 
which  now  confront  us  were  unknown  to  Ameri¬ 
can  experience  previous  to  the  Civil  War— 
though  they  are  as  old  as  Kings,  aristocracies, 
and  legal  privileges  in  Europe.  They  represent 
the  identical  condition  of  European  society  which 
our  fathers  fought  and  planned  that  we  might  es¬ 
cape.  And  every  evil  that  oppresses  us,  every 
menace  that  affrights  us,  is  traceable  directly  to 
an  abuse  of  our  inheritance,  to  a  departure  from 


114 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


the  American  system  of  equality  before  the  law. 

What,  then,  are  the  remedies? 

I  shall  later  devote  several  chapters  to  a  full 
discussion  of  the  remedies  which  well-tried  ex¬ 
perience  and  plain  common  sense  will  clearly  sug¬ 
gest— remedies  which  a  new  President  and  a  new 
Congress  will  surely  make  effective,  when  the 
people  so  will.  But  to  anticipate,  a  few  para¬ 
graphs  will  here  suffice  to  indicate  briefly  the 
needful  steps: 

(1)  We  require  the  immediate  passage  of  a 
currency  reform  measure  which  will  make  an  end 
of  our  confused  and  senseless  issues  of  all  kinds 
of  money,  and  give  us  instead  a  simple,  elastic, 
and  adequate  volume  of  national  bank  currency — 
every  dollar  of  it  redeemable  in  gold  by  the  banks 
of  issue!  This  is  imperatively  necessary  as  a 
means  of  safely  increasing  the  volume  of  our 
money,  in  proportion  to  the  enormous  increase 
in  the  volume  of  business ;  and  only  by  this  means 
can  we  render  it  impossible  for  Wall  Street  “fin¬ 
anciers”  to  corner  the  money  market,  and  peri¬ 
odically  alarm  the  nation  with  threats  of  panic 
when  it  suits  their  interest  to  carry  an  election, 
to  grab  a  railroad  or  to  put  stocks  up  and  then 
put  stocks  down. 

(2)  We  require  the  immediate  passage  of  a 
tariff  reform  measure  which  will  remove  the 
trust-protecting  duties  from  beef  and  coal,  iron 
and  steel,  hides  and  leather,  copper,  tin,  lead, 
drugs,  chemicals — in  short,  every  article  that  en¬ 
ters  into  home  manufacture,  and  the  necessary 
consumption  of  farmers  and  wage  earners.  The 
immediate  effect  of  this  would  be  to  lower  the 


OUTLINES  OF  PRESENT-DAY  PROBLEMS.  115 

cost  of  all  the  materials  of  manufacture,  and  to 
cheapen  a  long  list  of  articles  which  enter  into 
home  consumption.  Every  factory  in  the  country 
and  every  consumer  in  the  land  would  be  im¬ 
mediately  benefited  by  such  an  act ;  and  it  would 
have  the  further  health-giving  and  salutary  ef¬ 
fect  of  squeezing  the  water  out  of  the  industrial 
stocks  which,  during  the  past  few  years,  have 
been  enormously  overcapitalized  upon  the  theory 
that  American  manufacturers  and  consumers  will 
be  content  to  go  on  paying  dividends  on  paper 
capital  which  has  never  had  any  real  existence. 

(3)  To  meet  the  deficiency  in  revenue  thus  cre¬ 
ated,  a  graduated  income  tax  should  be  immedi¬ 
ately  enacted,  which  would  entirely  exempt  the 
vast  body  of  our  farmers,  wage  earners,  and 
people  who  work  for  small  salaries,  as  well  as 
those  who  depend  upon  small  incomes  from  hon¬ 
est  savings  for  old  age.  On  all  incomes  above  a 
minimum  figure,  the  tax  should  rise  in  geometrical 
measure,  so  that  a  very  considerable  portion  of 
the  income  from  great  millionaire  estates  could 
be  applied  each  year  to  the  rapid  discharge  of 
the  nation’s  obligations.  The  British  income 
tax,  with  its  heavy  inheritance  assessments,  is 
an  admirable  working  model.  The  bill  should  be 
entitled,  and  should  be  in  fact,  a  measure  for  dis¬ 
charging  our  war  obligations— thus  making  it 
strictly  Constitutional;  and  every  dollar  of  the 
just  taxation  thus  assessed,  should  be  applied  to 
the  war  debt,  which  is  still  with  us,  and  to  the 
payment  of  pensions  to  the  brave  soldiers  who 


116 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


fought  to  save  our  institutions,  and  to  the  widows 
and  orphans  of  the  heroes  who  died  in  that  noble 
cause. 

(4)  As  a  preliminary  step  to  the  intelligent 
preparation  of  a  complete  and  thoroughly  effec¬ 
tive  law  providing  for  publicity  of  the  accounts 
of  corporations,  a  measure  should  be  im¬ 
mediately  passed,  authorizing  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Commission  to  employ  a  staff  of 
accountants,  armed  with  authority  to  make  a 
thorough  examination  of  the  books,  accounts,  and 
records  of  every  large  corporation  known  to  be 
engaged  in  interstate  commerce.  The  informa¬ 
tion  thus  secured  will  enable  Congress  to  quickly 
frame  a  national  statute  chartering  and  govern¬ 
ing  national  corporations — to  be  modeled  closely 
after  the  well-tried  system  originated  by  Salmon 
P.  Chase,  which  has  effected  a  permanent  solu¬ 
tion  of  our  national  banking  problem. 

(5)  The  act  of  the  last  Congress,  creating  a 
new  Department  of  Commerce,  with  a  cabinet 
officer  and  a  horde  of  office-holders  under  him — 
should  be  instantly  repealed,  as  an  insult  to 
American  intelligence.  Its  sole  object  was  to 
mislead  the  people  as  to  the  Republican  party’s 
hypocritical  professions  of  a  desire  for  Public¬ 
ity;  to  hamper  and  obstruct  the  legitimate  work 
of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission;  and  to 
create  a  lot  of  new  offices  for  hungry  politicians. 
Every  move  under  this  new,  untried,  and  sense¬ 
less  piece  of  legislation  would  be  contested  in  the 
Courts— as  those  who  passed  it  well  knew;  and 
hence  the  promoters  of  combinations  and  Trusts 


OUTLINES  OF  PRESENT-DAY  PROBLEMS.  117 

would  simply  get  an  extension  of  time  for  their 
steady  work  of  marketing  watered  stocks  to  un¬ 
suspecting  investors. 

(6)  A  commission  should  be  immediately  cre¬ 
ated  by  Congress  to  take  in  hand  the  fundamen¬ 
tally  important  work  of  rigorously  investigating 
the  fraudulent  methods  whereby  the  Public  Do¬ 
main  has  been  deeded  away,  contrary  to  the  very 
letter  of  all  our  laws  providing  for  homestead 
settlement  and  actual  occupancy  and  use.  The 
inevitable  effect  of  this  will  be  to  throw  open  to 
actual  settlement  and  cultivation,  millions  upon 
millions  of  acres  of  arable  land  in  every  part  of 
our  vast  Public  Domain,  which  is  now  fenced  in 
and  held  out  of  use  for  speculative  purposes, 
by  great  corporations,  by  native  and  foreign  mil¬ 
lionaires,  and  by  big  and  little  4 ‘ investors’ ’  who 
have  evaded  the  law— who  have  literally  locked- 
up  natural  opportunities  and  thus  overcrowded 
the  labor  markets  in  all  manufacturing  centers. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  OUR  PROSPERITY. 


I  see  a  land  before  me,  where  manhood  in  its  pride 
„  ~orgot  fke  solemn  sentence,  the  wage  of  toil  denied  : 

To  wealth  and  lofty  station  some  royal  road  must  be  * 

Our  brother,  bound  and  plundered,  shall  earn  us  luxury.” 

— Julia  Ward  Howe. 


“I  never  yet  saw  a  native  American  begging  in  the  streets  or 
highways.  ’  ’ 

“I  think  our  people  will  remain  virtuous  for  many  cen¬ 
turies,  as  long  as  they  are  chiefly  agricultural;  and  this  will  be  as 
long  as  there  are  vacant  lands  in  any  part  of  America.  When 
they  get  piled  upon  one  another  in  large  cities,  as  in  Europe,  they 
will  become  corrupt  as  in  Europe. '  ’ 

Those  who  labor  in  the  earth  are  the  chosen  people  of  God  if 
he  ever  had  chosen  people,  whose  breasts  he  has  made  his  peculiar 
deposit  for  substantial  and  genuine  virtue.  It  is  the  focus  in 
which  he  keeps  alive  that  sacred  fire,  which  otherwise  might  es¬ 
cape  from  the  earth.  Corruption  of  morals  in  the  mass  of  culti¬ 
vators  is  a  phenomenon  of  which  no  age  or  nation  has  furnished 
an  example.  Generally  speaking,  the  proportion  which  the  ag- 
gregate  of  the  other  classes  of  citizens  bears  in  any  State  to  that 
ox  its  husbandmen,  is  the  proportion  of  its  unsound  and  healthy 
parts,  and  is  a  good  enough  barometer  whereby  to  measure  its 
degree  of  corruption.  ’ ’ 

— Thomas  Jefferson. 


Chapter  IV. 


The  astounding  increase  in  pauperism,  insan¬ 
ity,  crime,  and  child-slavery,  in  the  United  States 
during  the  past  thirty  years— since  the  panic  of 
1873 — makes  the  blackest  chapter  in  all  American 
history.  Hundreds  of  books  have  been  written 
upon  the  subject;  thousands  of  charitable  work¬ 
ers  have  given  testimony  to  the  facts ;  billions  of 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY.  119 

taxes  have  been  wisely  appropriated  by  state, 
county,  township  and  municipal  governments, 
for  housing  and  feeding  millions  of  native-born 
Americans  made  helpless  or  desperate  victims 
of  environment;  and  wholesale  philanthropy  has 
become  a  fashionable  fad  with  rich  men  who  have 
millions  of  ill-gotten  money  for  which  they  can 
find  no  other  profitable  use. 

All  of  these  things,  in  aggravated  form,  have 
come  upon  us  within  my  personal  observation— 
within  the  recollection  of  millions  of  American 
men  and  women  who  are  yet  in  the  prime  of  life. 
And  this  is  FREE  America ! 

It  would  be  the  folly  of  fanaticism  to  charge 
any  one  man,  or  any  single  group  of  men,  with 
entire  responsibility  for  the  awful  legacy  of  evil 
we  have  suffered;  and  I  have  no  such  intention. 
I  see  clearly  that  the  responsibility  rests  upon 
many  hundreds  of  men  who  have  been,  and  are, 
natural  leaders  of  our  people.  But  I  also  see, 
with  equal  clearness,  that  these  same  leaders— 
those  now  in  power  and  in  office,  like  those  who 
preceded  them— have  made  a  despicable  surren¬ 
der  to  selfish  personal  interest;  and,  not  under¬ 
standing,  often  not  caring  to  understand,  the 
cause  of  our  troubles,  they  have  simply  deter¬ 
mined  to  “look  out  for  No.  1”— at  the  public 
crib ! 

“Not  only  mean  and  sordid,  but  extremely  shortsighted  and 
foolish,  is  that  species  of  self-interest  which,  in  political  ques¬ 
tions,  opposeth  itself  to  the  public  good;  for  a  little  cool  re¬ 
flection  must  convince  a  wise  man  that  he  can  in  no  other  way 
so  effectually  consult  the  permanent  Interest  of  his  own  Family 
and  posterity,  as  by  securing  the  just  rights  and  privileges  of 
that  society  to  which  he  belongs.’ 1  —George  Mason. 


120 


JEFFEESONIAN  DEMOCEACY. 


To  capture  an  office,  to  monopolize  a  fran¬ 
chise,  or  to  “fix”  a  duty  in  the  Dingley  bill — 
this  is  the  “statesmanship”  of  these  times.  That 
it  should  have  corrupted  our  politics,  discredited 
our  system  of  government,  and  entailed  unutter¬ 
able  misery  upon  millions  of  the  poor  and  lowly— 
is  as  inevitable  as  that  selfishness  begets  hate  and 
sorrow  waits  upon  sin.  And  that  our  present 
rulers  may  see  the  inhuman  enormities  of  the 
system  they  uphold  and  defend — that  every  man 
of  them  may  be  presented  with  opportunity  to 
repent  his  mistakes  and  give  honest  aid  in  right¬ 
ing  the  wrongs  that  exist ;  let  us  now  review,  in 
measured  terms  of  simple  truth,  the  seamy  side 
of  that  Prosperity  which  we  all  boast  so  proudly. 

“The  true  prosperity  and  greatness  of  a  na¬ 
tion  is  to  be  found  in  the  elevation  and  educa¬ 
tion  of  its  laborers.”  —Ulysses  S.  Grant. 

The  poverty  which  haunts  the  lives  and  tries 
the  souls  of  America’s  patient  and  willing  work¬ 
ers,  is  practically  hidden  from  sight.  But  those 
who  seek  it  can  easily  find  it  everywhere;  and  I 
fancy  that  many  “prosperous”  Americans  will 
be  startled  with  this  awful  picture  of  child  slav¬ 
ery  in  “God’s  own  country,”  the  Protection 
stronghold  of  Pennsylvania,  where  Mr.  Divine- 
Eight  Baer  acts  as  Morgan’s  right-hand  man  in 
the  management  of  the  anthracite  coal  monopoly. 
It  will  be  recalled  that  at  the  beginning  of  the 
recent  strike  Mr.  Baer  gave  us  this  message  of 
reassurance : 

“The  rights  and  interests  of  the  laboring  men  will  be  pro¬ 
tected  and  cared  for — not  by  the  labor  agitators,  but  by  the 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY.  121 

Christian  men  to  whom  God,  in  Sis  infinite  wisdom ,  has  given 
the  control  of  the  property  interests  of  the  country;  and  upon 
the  successful  management  of  which  so  much  depends. 

It  has  been  aptly  observed  that  “the  same  rea¬ 
soning  wonld  enable  some  people  to  say  that  God, 
in  bis  infinite  wisdom,  once  pnt  Devery  in  charge 
of  the  New  York  police  force. ’  ’  Bnt  as  the  result 
of  such  reasoning,  we  shall  now  see  bow  these 
“Christian  men”  have  been  administering  their 
God-given  trust. 

As  early  as  June  3,  1902,  the  New  York  Board 
of  Trade  and  Transportation  held  a  notable  meet¬ 
ing  and  passed  a  series  of  resolutions  calling 
upon  the  President  to  take  steps  to  end  the  strike. 
In  these  resolutions  is  the  written  record  of  the 
common  sense,  the  simple  justice,  the  plain  duty, 
and  the  statute  law,  which  finally  forced  the  Pres¬ 
ident  to  take  action.  The  resolutions  were  of¬ 
fered  by  Mr.  Darwin  R.  James,  and  they  were 
ably  seconded  by  Mr.  John  D.  Kernan,  who  had 
been  a  member  of  the  Commission  appointed  by 
President  Cleveland  to  settle  the  Pullman  strike 
in  1894.  Here  are  the  documents  in  full: 

“  Whereas,  Differences  have  arisen  between  the  anthracite 
coal  roads  and  their  employees  in  the  mines  and  a  strike  has 
been  ordered  calling  out  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  miners 
and  laborers  and  the  production  and  transportation  of  anchra- 
cite  coal  has  ceased;  and, 

“Whereas,  Anthracite  coal,  as  a  fuel,  has  become  a  prime 
necessity  of  life  and  industry,  and  the  threatened  scarcity 
caused  by  the  controversy  has  resulted  in  a  large  advance  in 
the  price  and  great  hardship  and  injury  to  all  consumers  and 
a  large  advance  in  the  price  is  imminent  and  will  follow  if  the 
differences  between  the  railroads  and  their  employees  in  the 
mines  are  not  speedily  adjusted;  and 


122 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


Whereas,  The  interests  of  the  public  are  paramount  to 
those  of  the  parties  to  the  controversy  j 

Resolved,  That  the  attention  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States  be  respectfully  directed  to  Chapter  1063  of  the  laws  of 
the  United  States  passed  Oct.  1,  1888,  so  that  he  may  take  such 
action  as  therein  provided  either  through  the  tender  of  arbitra¬ 
tion  by  a  commission,  or,  if  such  arbitration  is  not  accepted, 
then  by  an  investigation  by  such  commission,  to  the  end  that 
the  public  may  be  relieved  from  the  increasing  loss  and  injury 
that  threaten  to  result  from  a  continuation  of  the  conditions  at 
present  existing  between  the  railroads  and  their  employees  in 
the  anthracite  regions.  ” 

.Five  months  later,  after  public  sentiment  had 
frightened  Mr.  Roosevelt  into  taking  the  action 
which  he  should  have  taken  long  before ;  after  the 
presence  of  the  Pennsylvania  National  Guard, 
ten  thousand  strong,  had  proved  that  the  miners 
could  not  be  driven  back  to  work  upon  terms 
they  deemed  unfair;  after  the  monopoly  price  of 
coal  had  been  forced  to  over  twenty  dollars  per 
ton;  after  the  coal  barons  had  been  exposed  and 
balked  in  their  deliberate  plan  of  starving  and 
freezing  the  sturdy  miners  into  submission— as 
they  had  frequently  done  before — then  it  was 
that  John  Mitchell’s  long-standing,  oft-repeated, 
and  thoroughly  patriotic  proposal  of  arbitration 
was  finally  accepted.  Immediately  thereafter 
McClure’s  Magazine  commissioned  Mr.  Francis 
E.  Nichols  to  go  into  the  coal  regions  to  get  the 
facts  to  describe  only  what  he  saw  and  knew  to 
be  true,  and  thereby  afford  the  public  an  oppor¬ 
tunity  to  judge  the  evidence  before  vivid  recol¬ 
lection  of  the  enormities  of  the  strike  had  faded 
from  view.  Mr.  Nichols  ’  record  of  his  work, 
with  speaking  illustrations,  appears  in  McClure’s 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY. 


123 


Magazine  for  February,  1903,  under  the  title, 
“Children  of  the  Coal  Shadow.”  In  the  same 
number,  Miss  Tarbell  gives  a  thrilling  chapter  in 
her  revelations  of  Standard  Oil  methods.  These 
are  some  of  the  facts  that  Mr.  Nichols  reports— 
with  the  sledge-hammer  deliberation  of  a  judge 
delivering  a  sentence  upon  the  guilty : 

“ According  to  the  mining  laws  of  Pennsylvania,  ‘no  boy 
under  the  age  of  fourteen  shall  be  employed  in  a  mine,  nor 
shall  a  boy  under  the  age  of  twelve  be  employed  in  or  about 
the  outside  structures  or  workings  of  a  colliery  ’  (i.  e.,  in  a 
breaker).  Yet  no  one  who  stands  by  the  side  of  a  breaker  boss 
and  looks  up  at  the  tiers  of  benches  that  rise  from  the  floor 
to  the  coal-begrimed  roof  can  believe  for  a  minute  that  the 
law  is  complied  with  in  the  case  of  one  in  ten  of  the  tiny  figures 
in  blue  jumpers  and  overalls  bending  over  the  chutes.  The 
mine  inspector  and  the  breaker  boss  will  explain  that  ‘these 
boys  look  younger  than  their  ages  is,  '  and  that  a  sworn  certifi¬ 
cate  setting  forth  the  age  of  every  boy  is  on  file  in  the  office. 

“Children's  age  certificates  are  a  criminal  institution.  When 
a  father  wishes  to  place  his  son  in  a  breaker,  he  obtains  an 
‘age  blank'  from  a  mine  inspector,  and  in  its  spaces  he  has 
inserted  some  age  at  which  it  is  legal  for  a  boy  to  work.  He 
carries  the  certificate  to  a  notary  public  or  justice  of  the  peace, 
who,  in  consideration  of  a  fee  of  twenty-five  cents,  administers 
oath  to  the  parent  and  affixes  a  notarial  seal  to  the  certifi¬ 
cate. 

“According  to  the  ethics  of  the  coal  fields,  it  is  not  wrong 
for  a  miner  or  his  family  to  lie  or  to  practice  any  form  of  de¬ 
ceit  in  dealing  with  coal-mine  operators  or  owners.  A  parent 
is  justified  in  perjuring  himself  as  to  his  son’s  age  on  a  certifi¬ 
cate  that  will  be  filed  with  the  mine  superintendent,  but  any 
statement  made  to  a  representative  of  a  union  must  be  absolutely 
truthful.  For  this  reason  my  inquiries  of  mine  boys  as  to  their 
work  and  wages  were  always  conducted  under  the  sacred  aus¬ 
pices  of  the  union. 

“The  interrogative  colloquy  was  invariably  something  like 
this: 

“  ‘How  old  are  you?'  '? 


124 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


“ Boy:  ‘  Thirteen;  going  on  fourteen. ’  ” 

“Secretary  of  the  Local:  'On  the  level  now.  this  is  union 
business.  You  can  speak  free,  understand.  ’  ’  ’ 

“Boy:  ‘Oh,  dat  ’s  a  diffurnt  t’ing  altogether.  I’m  nine 
years  old.  I’ve  been  working  since  me  f adder  got  hurted  in 
th?  explosion  in  No.  17  a  year  ago  last  October.  ’  ” 

“All  day  long  their  little  fingers  dip  into  the  unending  grimy 
stream  that  rolls  past  them  in  the  breakers.  The  coal  so 
closely  resembles  slate  that  it  can  be  detected  only  by  the  closest 
scrutiny,  and  the  childish  faces  are  compelled  to  bend  so  low 
over  the  chutes  that  prematurely  round  shoulders  and  narrow 
chests  are  the  inevitable  result.  In  front  of  the  chutes  is  an 
open  space  reserved  for  the  ‘breaker  boss/  who  watches  the 
boys  as  intently  as  they  watch  the  coal. 

The  boss  is  armed  with  a  stick,  with  which  he  occasionally 
raps  on  the  head  and  shoulders  a  boy  who  betrays  lack  of  zeal. 
The  breakers  are  supposed  to  be  heated  in  winter,  and  a  steam 
pipe  winds  up  the  wall;  but  in  cold  weather  every  pound  of 
steam  is  needed  in  the  mines,  so  that  the  amount  of  heat  that 
radiates  from  the  steam  pipe  is  not  sufficient  to  be  taken  seri¬ 
ously  by  any  of  the  breakers’  toilers.  From  November  until 
May  a  breaker  boy  always  wears  a  cap  and  tippet,  and  overcoat 
if  he  possesses  one,  but  because  he  has  to  rely  largely  upon  the 
sense  of  touch,  he  cannot  cover  his  finger-tips  with  mittens  or 
gloves;  from  the  chafing  of  the  coal  his  fingers  sometimes  bleed, 
and  his  nails  are  worn  down  to  the  quick.  The  hours  of  toil 
for  slate-pickers  are  supposed  to  be  from  seven  in  the  morning 
until  noon,  and  from  one  to  six  in  the  afternoon;  but  when 
the  colliery  is  running  on  ‘full  capacity  orders,’  the  noon  re¬ 
cess  is  reduced  to  half  an  hour,  and  the  good-night  whistle  does 
not  blow  until  half-past  six.  For  this  eleven  hours  work  the 
breaker  boy  gets  no  more  pay  than  for  ten. 

The  wages  of  breaker  boys  are  about  the  same  all  over  the 
coal  regions.  When  he  begins  to  work  at  slate-picking  a  boy 
receives  forty  cents  a  day,  and  as  he  becomes  more  expert  the 
amount  is  increased  until  at  the  end  of,  say,  his  fourth  year  in 
the  breaker,  his  daily  wage  may  have  reached  ninety  cents. 
This  is  the  maximum  for  an  especially  industrious  and  skillful 
boy.  The  average  is  about  seventy  cents  a  day.  From  the  ranks 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY. 


125 


of  the  older  breaker  boys  are  chosen  door-boys  and  runners,  who 
work  in  the  mines  below  ground. 

1 ‘  While  the  miner ’s  son  is  working  in  the  breaker  or  mine 
it  is  probable  that  his  daughter  is  employed  in  a  mill  or  fac¬ 
tory.  Sometimes  in  a  mining  town,  sometimes  in  a  remote  part 
of  the  coal  fields,  one  comes  upon  a  large,  substantial  building 
of  wood  or  brick.  When  the  six  o  ’clock  whistle  blows,  its  front 
door  is  opened,  and  out  streams  a  procession  of  girls.  Some  of 
them  are  apparently  seventeen  or  eighteen  years  old,  the  major¬ 
ity  are  from  thirteen  to  sixteen,  but  quite  a  number  would 
seem  to  be  considerably  less  than  thirteen.  Such  a  building  is 
one  of  the  knitting  mills  or  silk  factories  that  during  the  last 
ten  years  have  come  into  Anthracite. 

“Anthracite  is  away  from  the  main  lines  of  railroad)  it  is 
at  an  unnecessarily  long  distance  from  the  markets  where  the 
product  of  the  mill  is  sold;  the  raw  material  used  on  the  spindles 
and  looms  must  be  transported  from  afar. 

*  t  The  factory  inspector  will  tell  you,  ‘  The  mills  locate  in  An¬ 
thracite  because  they  all  employ  girls,  and  girl  labor  is  cheaper 
here  than  anywhere  else.  ’  A  glance  at  a  ‘  textile  ’  map  of  Penn¬ 
sylvania  will  show  that  wherever  there  are  miners,  there  cluster 
mills  that  employ  ‘  cheap  girl  labor.  ’ 

“The  perjury  certificate  prevails  for  the  girls,  as  well  as  the 
boys,  and  I  estimate  that  90  per  cent,  of  the  11,216  females 
(so  employed)  are  girls  who  have  not  yet  reached  womanhood. 
They  work  ten  hours  a  day,  and  the  majority  stand  all  of  that 
time,  having  a  chance  to  sit  only  in  the  noon  hour.  This  brings 
on  a  characteristic  lameness  in  the  girls  during  their  first  year 
at  the  mill.  The  report  of  the  Secretary  of  Internal  Affairs  of 
the  state  places  the  ‘average  daily  wage  of  children  between 
the  ages  of  thirteen  and  sixteen’  employed  in  the  manufacturing 
of  underwear  at  forty-seven  cents,  in  hosiery  mills  at  forty-six 

cents. 

‘  ‘  Through  a  district  organizer  I  was  enabled  to  interview 
under  union  auspices  a  number  of  little  girls  who  were  em¬ 
ployed  in  a  knitting  mill.  One  girl  of  fifteen  said  that  she  was 
the  oldest  of  seven  children.  She  had  worked  in  the  mill  since 
she  was  nine  years  old.  Her  father  was  a  miner.  As  pay- 
for  ‘  raveling  ’  she  received  an  amount  between  $2.50  and  $3 
every  two  weeks.  Another  thirteen-year-old  raveler  had  worked 


126 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


since  the  death  of  her  father,  two  years  before,  from  miner’s 
asthma;  her  brother  had  been  killed  in  the  mine.  The  $3  she 
received  every  two  weeks  in  her  pay  envelope  supported  her 
mother  and  her  ten-year-old  sister.  A  girl  of  fourteen  had 
looked  over’  stockings  for  two  years.  She  was  able  to  make  about 
$4  every  two  weeks.  A  Hooper’  of  fifteen  received  $6  every 
fortnight.  She  had  worked  for  four  years.  Her  father  was 
a  confirmed  invalid.  Yet  all  these  children  seemed  to  take 
great  pride  in  assuring  me  that  their  ‘papers  was  all  right  and 
sworn  to  when  we  started  to  work.  ’ 

The  breaker  boss  finds  at  the  mill  or  factory  a  counterpart 
in  the  ‘  forelady.  ’  This  personage  holds  a  prominent  place  in 
the  civilization  of  Anthracite.  It  is  taken  for  granted  that  the 
forelady  must  be  habitually  hateful,  and  in  all  controversies 
side  with  the  proprietor  against  the  rest  of  the  girls.  It  is  her 
duty  to  crush  incipient  strikes,  and  to  do  all  in  her  power  to 
break’  the  union.  She  enjoys  being  hated  by  every  one,  and 
leads  an  isolated  life  of  conscious  rectitude  for  about  $5  a  week. 

How  many  pairs  of  socks  can  a  girl  make  in  a  day  ?  ’  I 
asked  a  forelady.  ‘  They  can  easy  do  forty  dozen  pair  if  they  is 
good  workers,  but  none  of  them  is  good.  They  all  is  kickers. 
That ’s  what ’s  the  matter  with  them,  ’  was  her  reply. 

“And  they  do  ‘kick,’  both  boys  and  girls.  They  are  or¬ 
ganized  to  ‘kick.’  The  children  have  their  unions  as  well  as 
the  grown  folk.  Almost  as  soon  as  the  breaker  boy’s  certifi¬ 
cate  is  accepted  and  placed  on  file  in  the  colliery  office  he 
makes  application  to  become  a  member  of  the  ‘Junior  Local,’ 
the  members  of  which  are  all  boys  under  sixteen.  Their  weekly 
meetings  take  place  at  night,  and  are  conducted  with  the  utmost 
secrecy,  the  members  being  admitted  only  by  password.  The 
monthly  dues  range  from  ten  to  twenty-five  cents,  in  accordance 
with  the  wages  received  by  the  members. 

“Every  Junior  Local  has  its  full  quota  of  officers,  from 
president  to  corresponding  secretary,  elected  semi-annually  by 
the  boys.  To  the  weekly  meetings  of  the  Junior  Local  the  regu¬ 
lar  Miners’  Union  of  the  district  sends  a  representative,  but  he 

is  not  an  officer  of  the  Juniors;  he  acts  only  as  referee  and  in¬ 
structor. 

“Painfully  ludicrous  and  pitiful  as  it  all  is,  it  is  perfectly 
understandable.  The  children  of  the  Coal  Shadow  have  no 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY.  127 

child  life.  The  little  tots  are  sullen,  the  older  children  fight; 
they  rarely  play,  and  almost  their  only  amusement  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  union  and  the  strike  that  is  the  logical  result  of 
the  conditions  of  their  existence.  They  have  no  friends.  Their 
parents,  driven  by  what  they  think  is  necessity,  forswear  them 
into  bondage.  Their  employers,  compelled  by  what  they  regard 
as  economic  forces,  grind  them  to  hatred.  The  State,  ruled 
by  influences,  either  refrains  from  amalgamating  laws  or  cor¬ 
rective  enforcement.  The  rest  of  the  world  doesn’t  care.  So 
the  shadow  of  the  coal  heap  lies  dark  upon  these  ‘unionized’ 
little  ones  as  they  grow  up  to  be  men  and  women.  Within  a 
few  years  the  breaker  boy  will  be  a  miner.  It  is  the  only  trade 
with  which  he  is  familiar,  and  his  lack  of  education  will  make 
a  commercial  or  professional  career  for  him  almost  impossible. 
He  will  have  to  live  in  Anthracite,  because  it  is  the  only  country 
where  a  hard-coal  miner  can  follow  his  trade.  The  mill  girl 
will  marry  early  in  life;  her  husband  will  be  a  miner.  They  will 
both  be  American  citizens.  They  will  remain  in  the  Coal 
Shadow.  ’  ’ 

Now  witness  this  parallel  picture  of  heart¬ 
rending  and  helpless  ”  white  slavery  in  the 
South”— a  literal  slaughter  of  little  children 
that  the  cost  of  production  may  be  kept  down  and 
that  ten  per  cent,  dividends  may  be  declared  upon 
Northern  capital: 

“Next  to  Massachusetts,  South  Carolina  manufactures  more 
cotton  cloth  than  any  other  State  in  the  Union.  The  cotton 
mills  of  South  Carolina  are  mostly  owned  and  operated  by  New 
England  capital. 

‘  ‘  In  many  instances  the  machinery  of  the  cotton  mills  has 
been  moved  entire  from  Massachusetts  to  South  Carolina.  The 
move  was  made  for  the  ostensible  purpose  of  being  near  the 
raw  product;  but  the  actual  reason  is,  that  in  South  Carolina 
there  is  no  law  regulating  child-labor.  Heartless  cupidity  has 
joined  hands  with  brutal  ignorance,  and  the  result  is  child-labor 
of  so  terrible  a  type  that  African  slavery  was  a  paradise  com¬ 
pared  with  it. 

“Many  of  the  black  slaves  lived  to  a  good  old  age,  and  they 


128 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


got  a  hearty  enjoyment  from  life.  The  infant  factory  slaves  of 
South  Carolina  can  never  develop  into  men  and  women.  There 
are  no  mortality  statistics;  the  mill  owners  baffle  all  attempts 
of  the  outside  public  to  get  at  the  facts,  but  my  opinion  is,  that 
in  many  mills  death  sets  the  little  prisoner  free  inside  of  four 
years.  Beyond  that  he  cannot  hope  to  live,  and  this  opinion  is 
derived  from  careful  observation,  and  interviews  with  several 


skilled  and  experienced  physicians  who  practice  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  mills. 

Boys  and  girls  from  the  age  of  six  years  and  upwards  are 
employed.  They  usually  work  from  six  o'clock  in  the  morning 
until  seven  at  night.  For  four  months  of  the  year  they  go  to 
work  before  daylight  and  they  work  until  after  dark. 

At  noon  I  saw  them  squat  on  the  floor  and  devour  their 
food,  which  consisted  mostly  of  corn  bread  and  bacon.  These 
weazened  pigmies  munched  in  silence,  and  then  toppled  over  in 
sleep  on  the  floor  in  all  the  abandon  of  babyhood.  Very  few 
wore  shoes  and  stockings;  dozens  of  little  girls  of,  say,  seven 
years  of  age  wore  only  one  garment,  a  linsey-woolsey  dress. 
When  it  came  time  to  go  to  work  the  foreman  marched  through 
the  groups,  shaking  the  sleepers,  shouting  in  their  ears,  lifting 
them  to  their  feet  and  in  a  few  instances  kicking  the  de¬ 
linquents  into  wakefulness. 

The  long  afternoon  had  begun — from  a  quarter  to  one  until 
seven  o  'clock  they  worked  without  respite  or  rest. 


These  toddlers,  I  saw,  for  the  most  part  did  but  one  thing 
—they  watched  the  flying  spindles  on  a  frame  twenty  feet 
long,  and  tied  the  broken  threads.  They  could  not  sit  at  their 
tasks;  back  and  forward  they  paced,  watching  with  inanimate, 
dull  look,  the  flying  spindles.  The  roar  of  the  machinery 
drowned  every  other  sound-back  and  forth  paced  the  baby 
toilers  in  their  bare  feet,  and  mended  the  broken  threads.  Two, 
three  or  four  threads  would  break  before  they  could  patrol  the 
twenty  feet— the  threads  were  always  breaking! 

“The  noise  and  the  constant  looking  at  the  flying  wheels 
reduce  nervous  sensation  in  a  few  months  to  the  minimum.  The 
child  does  not  think,  he  ceases  to  suffer — memory  is  as  dead  as 
hope:  no  more  does  he  long  for  the  green  fields,  the  running 
streams,  the  freedom  of  the  woods,  and  the  companionship  of  all 
the  wild,  free  things  that  run,  climb,  fly,  swim  or  burrow.  He 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY. 


129 


does  his  work  like  an  automaton:  he  is  a  part  of  the  roaring 
machinery :  memory  is  seared,  physical  vitality  is  at  such 
low  ebb  that  he  ceases  to  suffer.  Nature  puts  a  short  limit 
on  torture  by  sending  it  insensibility.  If  you  suffer,  thank  God! 
— it  is  a  sure  sign  you  are  alive. 

“I  thought  to  lift  one  of  the  little  toilers  to  ascertain  his 
weight.  Straightway  through  his  thirty-five  pounds  of  skin  and 
bones  there  ran  a  tremor  of  fear,  and  he  struggled  forward  to 
tie  a  broken  thread.  I  attracted  his  attention  by  a  touch,  and 
offered  him  a  silver  dime.  He  looked  at  me  dumbly,  from  a 
face  that  might  have  belonged  to  a  man  of  sixty,  so  furrowed, 
tightly  drawn  and  full  of  pain  it  was.  He  did  not  reach  for 
the  money — he  did  not  know  what  it  was.  I  tried  to  stroke 
his  head  and  caress  his  cheek.  My  smile  of  friendship  meant 
nothing  to  him— he  shrank  from  my  touch,  as  though  he  ex¬ 
pected  punishment.  A  caress  was  unknown  to  this  child,  sym¬ 
pathy  had  never  been  his  portion,  and  the  love  of  a  mother  who 
only  a  short  time  before  held  him  in  her  arms,  had  all  been 
forgotten  in  the  whir  of  wheels  and  the  awful  silence  of  a  din 
that  knows  no  respite. 

“  There  were  dozens  of  just  such  children  in  this  particular 
mill.  A  physician  who  was  with  me  said  that  they  would  all  be 
dead,  probably  in  two  years,  and  their  places  filled  with  others— 
there  were  plenty  more.  Pneumonia  carries  off  most  of  them. 
Their  systems  are  ripe  for  disease,  and  when  it  comes,  there 
is  no  rebound— no  response.  Medicine  simply  does  not  act- 
nature  is  whipped,  beaten,  discouraged,  and  the  child  sinks  into 
a  stupor,  and  dies. 


“For  these  things  let  Massachusetts  answer. 

“South  Carolina  weaves  cotton  that  Massachusetts  may  wear 
silk. 

“South  Carolina  cannot  abolish  child-labor  because  the  mill 
owners,  who  live  in  New  England,  oppose  it.  They  have  in¬ 
vested  their  millions  in  South  Carolina,  with  the  tacit  under¬ 
standing  with  Legislature  and  Governor  that  there  shall  be  no 
state  inspection  of  mills,  nor  interference  in  any  way  with 
their  management  of  employees.  Each  succeeding  election  the 
candidates  for  the  Legislature  secretly  make  promises  that  they 
will  not  pass  a  law  forbidding  child-labor.  They  cannot  hope 


130 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


for  election  otherwise— the  capitalists  combine  with  the  “crack¬ 
ers,”  and  any  man  who  favors  the  restriction  of  child-labor  is 
marked. 


“I  learned  from  a  reliable  source  that  a  cotton  mill  having  a 
pay-roll  of  six  thousand  dollars  a  week  in  New  England,  can  be 
run  in  the  South  for  four  thousand  dollars  a  week.  This  means  a 
saving  of  just  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year:  and  the 
mill  having  a  capital  of  one  million  dollars  thus  gets  a  cle^r 
gain  of  ten  per  cent,  per  annum. 

i  1  One  mill  at  Columbia,  S.  C.,  has  a  capital  of  two  million 
dollars.  Th  half  a  dozen  other  cities  there  are  mills  with  a 
capital  of  a  million  or  more.  These  mills  all  have  *  company  de¬ 
partment  stores,  ’  where  the  employees  trade.  A  certain  credit  is 
given,  and  the  employe  who  has  a  dollar  coming  to  him  in  cold 
cash  is  very,  very  rare.  The  cashier  of  one  mill  told  me  that 
nineteen  families  out  of  twenty  never  see  any  cash,  and  probably 
never  will.  The  account  is  kept  with  the  head  of  the  house. 
Against  him  are  charged  house-rent,  insurance,  fuel — three 
things  the  man  never  thought  of.  Next,  the  orders  drawn  on 
the  company  must  be  met.  Then  come  groceries,  clothing  and 
gew-gaws  that  the  young  women  are  tempted  into  buying,  pro¬ 
viding  the  account  is  not  too  much  overdrawn.  Sometimes  it 
happens  that  the  account  is  so  much  overdrawn  by  the  last  of  the 
month  that  the  storekeeper  will  dole  out  only  corn-meal  and 
bacon— just  these  two  things  to  prevent  starvation  and  keep  the 
family  at  work. 


1  *  The  ingenuity  displayed  in  securing  the  laborers  reveals 
the  ‘  instincts  of  Connecticut, 7  to  use  the  phrase  of  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson.  There  are  men  called  1  Employing  Agents  ’ 
who  drive  through  the  country  and  make  the  acquaintance  of  the 
poor  whites — the  ‘  white  trash. f 

“The  Employing  Agent  drops  in  on  this  poor  white  family 
and  there  is  much  friendly  conversation — for  time  is  no  object 
to  the  cracker.  Gradually  the  scheme  is  unfolded.  There  is  a 
nice  man  who  owns  a  mill — he  will  not  employ  negroes — they  are 
not  sufficiently  intelligent.  The  visitor  can  get  work  for  all  the 
women  and  the  children  of  the  household  with  this  nice  man. 
There  will  be  no  work  for  the  man  of  the  house,  but  he  can  get 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OE  PROSPERITY. 


131 


odd  jobs  in  the  town.  This  suits  the  cracker — he  does  not  want 
to  work.  A  house  will  be  supplied  gratis  for  them  to  live  in. 
A  photograph  of  the  house  is  shown — it  is  a  veritable  palace 
compared  with  the  place  they  now  call  home.  The  visitor  goes 
away,  promising  to  call  again  the  next  week.  He  comes  back 
and  reports  that  he  has  seen  his  friend,  the  house  is  ready,  work 
is  waiting,  wages  in  cash  will  be  paid  every  Saturday  night. 

“A  printed  agreement  is  produced  and  signed. 

“If  the  cracker  hasn’t  quite  energy  enough  to  move,  the 
Employing  Agent  packs  up  his  scanty  effects  and  advances 
money  for  car  fare.  The  family  land  in  the  mill  town,  are 
quartered  in  one  of  the  company ’s  cottages  and  go  to  work  the 
mother  and  all  the  children  over  five.  The  head  of  the  house 
stays  at  home  to  do  the  housework,  and  being  a  man,  of  course, 
does  not  do  it.  He  goes  to  the  grocery  or  some  other  loafing 
place  where  there  are  other  men  in  the  same  happy  condition  as 
himself.  Idle  men  in  the  South,  as  elsewhere,  do  not  feel  very 
well — they  need  a  little  stimulant,  and  take  it.  The  cracker  dis¬ 
covers  he  can  get  whiskey  and  pay  for  it  with  an  order  on  the 
company. 

“He  is  very  happy,  and  needless  to  say,  is  quite  opposed  to 
any  fanatic  who  would  like  to  interfere  in  his  family  relations. 
He  is  not  aware  of  it,  but  he  has  sold  his  wife  and  children  into 
a  five  years’  slavery.  The  company  threatens  and  has  the  right 
to  discharge  them  all  if  one  quits— even  the  mother  is  not  free. 
But  the  cracker  knows  his  rights — he  is  the  head  of  his  family, 
the  labor  of  his  children  is  his  until  the  girls  are  eighteen  and 
the  boys  twenty-one.  He  knows  these  things  and  he  starts  them 
off  to  their  work  while  it  is  yet  night.  And  at  the  mill  the  over¬ 
seers  look  after  them.  These  overseers  are  Northern  men — sent 
down  by  the  capitalists.  In  war  time  the  best  slave-drivers  were 
Northerners — they  have  the  true  spirit  and  get  the  work  done. 
If  necessary  they  do  not  hesitate  to  r  reprove  ’  their  charges. 

“But  the  cracker  wants  to  be  kind;  he  wants  to  accumulate 
enough  money  to  buy  a  home  in  the  country— it  will  take  only 
a  few  years!  The  overseers  do  not  wish  to  be  brutal,  but  they 
have  to  report  to  the  superintendents,— there  must  be  so  much 
cloth  made  every  day.  The  superintendent  is  not  a  bad  man— 
but  he  has  to  make  a  daily  report  to  the  president  of  the  com¬ 
pany;  and  the  president  has  to  report  to  the  stockholders. 


132 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


“The  stockholders  live  in  Boston,  and  all  they  want  is  their 
dividends.  When  they  go  South  they  go  to  Pinehurst,  Ashe¬ 
ville  or  St.  Augustine.  Details  of  the  mills  are  not  pleasant; 
they  simply  leave  matters  to  the  good  men  who  operate  the 
mills— it  is  against  their  policy  to  dictate. 


“  Capital  i3  King,  not  cotton.  But  capital  is  blind  and  deaf 
to  all  that  is  not  to  its  interest:  it  will  not  act  while  child- 
labor  means  ten  per  cent,  dividends  on  industrial  stocks. 

“Instead  of  abolishing  child-labor,  capital  gives  a  lot,  near 
the  mill  property,  to  any  preacher  who  will  build  a  church,  and 
another  lot  for  a  parsonage,  and  then  agrees  to  double  the 
amount  any  denomination  will  raise  for  a  church  edifice. 

“Within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  one  cotton  mill,  at  Colum¬ 
bia,  S.  C.,  I  counted  seven  churches,  completed  or  in  process 
of  erection. 

“And  that  is  the  way  the  mill  owners  capture  the  clergy. 

“We  have  heard  much  about  the  danger  that  follows  an  alli¬ 
ance  between  church  and  state;  but  what  think  you  of  a  partner¬ 
ship  between  grasping  greed  and  religion — the  professed  relig¬ 
ion  of  the  suffering,  bleeding  Christ,  the  Christ  who  had  not  where 
to  lay  his  head! 


“If  the  child  workers  of  South  Carolina  could  be  marshalled 
by  bugle  call,  headed  with  fife  and  drum,  and  marched  through 
Commonwealth  avenue,  out  past  that  statue  of  William  Lloyd 
Garrison,  erected  by  the  sons  of  the  men  who  dragged  him 
through  the  streets  at  a  rope’s  end,  the  sight  would  appall  the 
heart  and  drive  conviction  home.  Imagine  an  army  of  twenty 
thousand  pigmy  bondsmen,  half  naked,  half  starved,  yellow, 
weazened,  deformed  in  body,  with  drawn  faces  that  show  spirits 
too  dead  to  weep,  too  hopeless  to  laugh,  too  pained  to  feel! 
Would  not  aristocratic  Boston  lock  her  doors,  bar  the  shutters 
and  turn  in  shame  from  such  a  sight? 

“I  know  the  sweat  shops  of  Hester  street,  New  York;  I  am 
familiar  with  the  vice,  depravity  and  degradation  of  the  White¬ 
chapel  District;  I  have  visited  the  Ghetto  of  Venice;  I  know  the 
lot  of  the  coal  miners  of  Pennsylvania;  and  I  know  somewhat 
of  Siberian  atrocities;  but  for  misery,  woe  and  hopeless  suffer- 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OP  PROSPERITY. 


133 


in g,  I  have  never  seen  anything  to  equal  the  cotton  mill  slavery 
of  South  Carolina — this  in  my  own  America — the  Land  of  the 
Free  and  the  Home  of  the  Brave! 

1  ‘The  iniquity  of  this  New  Slavery  in  the  New  South  has 
grown  up  out  of  conditions  for  which  no  one  man,  or  class  of 
men,  it  seems  is  amenable.  The  interests  of  the  cracker,  the 
preacher,  the  overseer,  the  superintendent,  the  president,  and  the 
stockholders,  are  so  involved  that  they  cannot  see  the  truth — 
their  feet  are  ensnared,  and  they  sink  into  the  quicksands  of 
hypocrisy,  deceiving  themselves  with  specious  reasons.  They 
must  be  educated,  and  the  people  must  be  educated. 

“So  it  remains  for  that  small,  yet  valiant  band  of  men  and 
women  in  the  South,  who  are  fighting  this  iniquity,  to  hold 
fast  and  not  leave  off  in  their  work  until  the  little  captives  are 
made  free.  Right  will  surely  win.  And  to  these  earnest  men 
and  women  who  are  braving  ostracism,  and  who  are  often 
scorned  in  their  own  homes,  who  have  nothing  to  gain  but  the 
consciousness  of  having  done  right,  we  reach  friendly  hands 
across  the  miles,  and  out  of  the  silence  we  send  them  blessings 
and  bid  them  be  strong  and  of  good  cheer.  Seemingly  they 
fight  alone,  but  they  are  not  alone,  for  the  great,  throbbing, 
melting  mother-heart  of  the  world,  has  but  to  know  of  their 
existence  to  be  one  with  them.  ”  — Elbert  Hubbard. 

Following  Mr.  Hubbard’s  lead,  the  New  York 
Herald ,  and  many  other  trustworthy  newspapers, 
have  since  given  ns  graphic  portrayals  of  the 
horrors  of  child-labor  in  numerous  industries 
throughout  the  North— have  indeed  shown  that 
child  slavery  exists  in  every  State  in  the  Union, 
without  a  single  exception;  and  that  everywhere 
parents  plead  poverty  and  necessity  as  the  reason 
for  putting  the  little  ones  to  work  at  a  time  when 
they  should  all  be  in  school  and  at  play. 

As  the  immediate  result  of  this  splendid  news¬ 
paper  work,  South  Carolina  has  already  done 
herself  high  credit  by  passing  a  law  intended  to 
abate  the  evil.  But  it  is  hopeless  to  rely  upon 


134 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


mere  statute  law— as  Pennsylvania  experience 
clearly  proves.  The  trouble  lies  deeper.  Mother 
love  would  protect  the  little  ones,  just  as  mother 
love  is  the  secure  basis  of  all  society.  But  the 
love  of  parents  for  children  is  rendered  helpless 
in  the  face  of  pauperism  or  submission  to  the 
service  of  a  moneyed  master ;  and  ere  this  book  is 
written  out,  1  think  we  shall  see  both  the  causes 
and  certain  remedies  for  the  hideous  industrial 
slavery  which  makes  little  children  its  helpless 
victims. 

Turning  now  from  child  slavery,  let  us  take  a 
look  at  adult  slavery.  In  his  new  book,  “The 
Social  Unrest,’7  published  in  January,  1903,  Prof. 
John  Graham  Brooks  gives  us  this  searching  in¬ 
sight  into  every-day  adult  life  the  country  over : 

“In  my  own  city  (Boston)  the  conductors  and  motormen 
upon  the  trolley  cars  are  carefully  selected  and  well  paid,  but 
the  question  put  to  more  than  forty  of  them,  ‘Is  there  any 
chance  in  your  position  of  getting  on  very  much?’  elicits  usually 
only  good-natured  surprise  that  such  a  question  can  be  asked. 
There  is  rather  the  dogged  feeling  that  it  must  be  made  the 
best  of.  One  said  to  me,  ‘I  am  thankful  to  get  this;  if  I 
dropped  out,  a  hundred  men  would  jump  at  my  chance  before 
supper.  All  I  hope  for  is  to  keep  this  job  twelve  years  at  most, 
at  the  end  of  which  I  shall  have  what  I  am  getting  to-day,  two 
dollars  and  a  quarter.  ’  I  asked  him  if  he  were  married.  ‘  Yes, 
and  I  have  three  children,  but  I  have  no  business  to  have  them. 
With  city  rents  and  market  prices  about  Boston,  I  can  just  keep 
even.  The  best  luck  I  expect  is  to  stick  here  till  I  am  forty, 
then  they  will  want  a  younger  man.  I  left  my  country  town 
because  farming  only  keeps  you  alive.  Down  here  I  just  keep 
alive,  too,  but  it  ain’t  a  graveyard,  as  it  is  up  there  in  the 
hills.’  Some  millions  of  men  in  the  United  States  are  at  the 
present  moment  in  the  situation  of  that  motorman,  so  far  as 
expectations  are  concerned.  For  commonplace  and  average 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY. 


135 


abilities,  in  mill  and  factory,  the  cheering  promise  of  getting 
free  from  an  ‘  existence  wage  ’  scarcely  exists.  For  special  gifts, 
the  prizes  never  were  so  high  as  now.  For  ordinary  capacity 
in  the  common  industries  the  old  hopes  are  lessened. 

“We  know  personally,  or  by  observation  among  the  well-to- 
do  citizens,  that  any  serious  lowering  of  income— -as,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  from  $5,000  to  $3,000 — is  looked  upon  as  a  disaster.  Do 
people  of  ampler  income  lack  imagination  that  they  fail  to  see 
the  bearings  of  this  fact  upon  the  threatened  income  of  the 
wage  earners? 

“A  study  has  been  made  of  an  eastern  town  in  which  more 
than  four  thousand  American  workmen  receive  a  wage  that 
does  not  average  $1.85.  What  must  it  mean  for  a  family  of 
five  persons  to  have  this  sum  cut  even  25  cents  a  day?  The 
worst— as  it  is  the  commonest  cut  of  all— is  the  large  average 
of  days  in  the  year  when  there  is  no  work,  and  pay  stops  alto¬ 
gether.  The  simplest  addition  of  cost  for  the  invariable  necessi¬ 
ties— food,  rent,  clothing— makes  clear  how  narrow  a  margin  is 
left.  I  choose  the  employees  in  this  town  because  they  rank 
distinctly  above  unskilled  labor,  and  have  won  a  standard  of  life 
from  which  every  loss  is  dreaded,  because  the  expenditure  of 
respectability  in  their  group  is  endangerd.  Every  little  sign  of 
respectability  which  the  higher  wage  makes  possible — the  par¬ 
lor  organ,  the  cheap  lace  curtains,  the  beribboned  furniture,  the 
gaudily  framed  family  crayon— soon  becomes  the  basis  of  a  sen¬ 
timent  as  powerful  as  it  is  salutary.  Do  we  imagine  that  their 
symbols  of  respectability  mean  less  to  them  than  to  the  fops 
of  the  fashionable  quarter?  I  have  known  a  man  grow  gray 
with  trouble  in  five  years  because  his  income  shrank  just 
enough  to  force  him  to  move  into  a  less  distinguished  part  of 
the  town.  He  still  had  every  possible  comfort,  but  could  not 
have  the  private  school,  the  doctor  and  the  dentist  of  the  elite  in 
his  former  neighborhood. 

“In  1902,  I  saw  in  Georgia  and  Alabama  troops  of  children, 
many  under  twelve,  working  the  entire  night.  I  had  previously 
heard  every  detail  of  this  ugly  story,  in  which  northern  capital 
is  implicated  as  much  as  southern,  yet  nothing  but  personal 
observation  would  have  made  me  believe  the  extent  to  which 
this  blunder  goes  on  in  our  midst.  Whether  one  finds  this 
evil  in  New  Jersey  industries,  among  Illinois  glass-blowers,  on 


136 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


the  Chicago  streets  at  night,  or  in  the  merciless  sweating  of  the 
clothing  trade,  it  is  an  excuseless  wrong  for  which  no  extenuating 
word  can  be  uttered.  It  is  a  source  of  disease,  crime,  and  social 
weakness.  That  it  is  not  a  purposed  cruelty,  does  not  change 
the  fatality  of  the  result.  A  kindly  employer  in  Alabama  tells 
me,  ‘Yes,  it  is  bad,  but  the  parents  of  these  children  will  have 
it.’  Every  argument  reproduces  to  the  letter  the  excuses  of 
employers  two  generations  ago,  when  Shaftesbury  began  his 
great  struggle  against  child-labor  in  Eugland. 

“This  stunting  use  of  the  child  in  industry  is  but  a  part  of 
what  is  perhaps  the  most  threatening  fact  of  the  new  century, 
the  wider  and  more  relentless  use  of  every  known  agency  to  keep 
wages  (and  therefore  the  standard  of  life)  as  low  as  possible. 
Women,  children,  negroes,  the  inhabitants  of  our  new  dependen¬ 
cies  and  every  shade  of  immigrant,  will  one  and  all  be  used  like 
pawns  in  the  great  game  of  immediate  business  advantage  in 
the  markets  of  the  world. 

“If  this  purpose  should  succeed,  it  has  but  one  issue— the  im¬ 
mense  strengthening  of  a  plutocratic  administration  at  the  top, 
served  by  an  army  of  high-salaried  helpers,  with  an  elite  of 
skilled  and  well-paid  workmen,  but  all  resting  on  what  would  be 
essentially  a  serf  class  of  low-paid  labor  and  this  mass  kept  in 
order  by  an  increased  use  of  military  force.  ” 

Very  recently  the  newspapers  have  been  regal¬ 
ing  ns  daily  with  sensational  headlines  setting 
forth  the  alarming  increase  of  divorce  in  the 
United  States;  and  a  lengthy  discussion  of  the 
problem  by  leading  divines,  eminent  lawyers  and 
distinguished  men  and  women,  is  immediately 
followed  by  a  symposium  of  signed  articles  dis¬ 
cussing  4  ‘  race-suicide  ’ ’ — or  the  disappearance  of 
large  families,  and  the  surprising  increase  in  the 
number  of  childless  couples,  old  maids,  and  con¬ 
firmed  bachelors  in  the  United  States.  No  less  a 
personage  than  President  Roosevelt  himself  joins 
in  deploring  the  latter  significant  tendency  of  the 
times.  But,  to  my  thinking,  Dr.  Francis  L.  Pat- 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY.  137 

ton,  the  venerable  ex-president  of  Princeton 
University,  has  explained  the  situation  in  a  few 
sentences.  In  his  notable  address  upon  the 
“ Place  of  Conscience  in  the  National  Life,”  de¬ 
livered  before  the  Presbyterian  Social  Union  not 
long  ago,  he  said : 

‘‘I  believe  that  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when  there  will 
not  be  a  thing  that  we  eat,  drink,  or  wear  that  will  not  be  made 
by  a  Trust. 

“If  such  is  the  case,  it  will  not  be  long  until  it  will  be  a 
financial  impossibility  for  the  average  young  man  to  get  mar¬ 
ried.  ’ 1 

Dr.  Patton,  the  reporter  says,  was  not  enthusiastic  over  the 
statement  of  one  of  the  nation’s  wealthiest  citizens  that  he 
found  more  pleasure  in  Shakespeare  and  Bach  than  in  his 
wealth.  “It  was  kind  to  us,  who  are  not  wealthy,  for  him  to 
say  that;  but  I  believe,”  said  Dr.  Patton,  “  that  a  certain 
amount  of  wealth  is  necessary  to  enjoy  Shakespeare  and  Bach.” 

The  divorce  problem,  also,  is  thus  summarized 
by  a  talented  writer  in  the  New  York  American 
who  does  not  disclose  his  identity,  but  who  is 
evidently  a  close  student  of  history  and  a  watch¬ 
ful  observer  of  the  signs  of  the  times  through 
which  we  are  passing.  Says  he : 


“The  total  number  of  divorces  in  the  United  States  for  any 
given  year  since  1870  exceeds  the  figure  for  all  the  rest  of  the 
world ! 

“It  is  America  against  the  world,  with  America  gaining  on 
the  world  at  every  jump! 

“In  1870,  3  1-2  per  cent  of  all  marriages  in  this  country 
ended  in  divorce.  In  1881,  the  percentage  had  risen  to  4.8;  in 
1890,  it  was  6.2;  while  in  1900  it  was  8  per  cent. 

“In  other  words,  the  percentage  of  divorces  in  this  country 
has  more  than  doubled  since  1870. 

“Since  1890  it  has  more  than  trebled— and  the  tide  is  still 
rising. 


138 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


“It  is  no  unusual  thing  these  days  for  a  judge  or  justice  to 
clean  up  a  divorce  docket  of  a  hundred  cases  or  more  in  a 
few  hours. 

“Not  long  ago  a  St.  Louis  judge  granted  sixty-two  divorces 
in  half  a  day,  and  a  New  York  court  separated  seventy-three 
couples  in  exactly  450  minutes,  being  a  little  over  six  minutes 

for  each  case! 

“In  many  localities  the  court  statistics  show  that  full  20  per 

cent,  of  the  marriages  are  failures. 

“The  rapid  transit  idea  has  been  reduced  to  its  greatest 
efficiency  in  this  line  of  separating  husbands  and  wives  and 
breaking  up  homes. 

“The  1  divorce  mills 1  are  working  over  hours. 

“It  is  no  wonder  we  are  forced  to  hear  from  the  mouth  of  a 
distinguished  Western  judge  words  like  these: 

“  <if  a  man  becomes  dissatisfied  with  his  wife  for  any  cause, 
or  a  wife  prefers  another  to  her  husband,  she  applies  for  a 
divorce  without  much  danger  of  being  refused.  The  testimony 
of  the  complaining  party,  with  slight  corroborating  evidence, 

is  sufficient. 1 

“What  is  the  matter?  A  great  many  things  are  the  matter. 

“In  the  early  part  of  this  article  reference  was  made  to 
ancient  Rome  and  to  its  long-time  immunity  from  divorce;  but 
we  know  that  the  time  came  in  the  history  of  the  Eternal  City 
when  many  of  its  women  reckoned  up  their  ages,  not  by  the 
years  they  had  lived,  but  by  the  number  of  husbands  they  had 

had. 

“This  condition  of  things  was  at  its  climax  in  the  reign  of 
Augustus,  when  Rome  was  outwardly  omnipotent  and  when  it 
looked  as  though  her  dominion  might  endure  forever. 

“But  because  the  domestic  life  of  the  great  city  had  gone  to 
the  dogs,  it  was  true,  though  it  was  not  at  the  time  perceived, 
that  the  barbarians  were  soon  to  crush  her. 

*  ‘  The  ‘  glory  which  was  Rome  ’  began  to  fade  when  the  purity 
of  her  homes  began  to  decline,  and  no  axiom  in  Euclid  is  clearer 
than  the  fact  that  it  was  the  impurity  of  the  Roman  domestic 
life,  rather  than  the  strength  of  the  barbarian  arms,  that  de¬ 
stroyed  the  capital  of  the  world. 

*  *  The  question :  Will  history  repeat  itself  ?  is  answered  by  the 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY.  139 

eternal  truism  that  history  is  always  the  same  when  the  conditions 
of  human  society  are  the  same. 

“History  can  repeat  itself;  history  does  repeat  itself;  if  we 
are  wise  we  will  remember  Rome.  *' 

I  could  fill  a  book  with  testimony  like  this. 
But  the  quotations  given  are  quite  enough  to  illus¬ 
trate  what  is  common  knowledge  among  chari¬ 
table  workers,  namely:  that  in  every  center  of 
population  and  in  all  branches  of  Protected  man¬ 
ufacturing  industry,  the  country  over,  the  old, 
the  young,  the  unfortunate,  and  the  unskilled, 
spend  their  lives  in  a  constant  struggle  for  bare 
necessities ;  live  in  mortal  dread  of  being  thrown 
out  of  work ;  and  every  year  tens  of  thousands  of 
them  are  forced  to  give  up  the  fight  and  pocket 
pride  as  the  price  of  bread.  And  for  proof  of  this 
we  need  only  turn  to  the  records  of  Organized 
Charity— that  unimpeachable  testimony  of  skilled 
experts  who  devote  their  lives  to  the  Master’s 
work. 

Mr.  Charles  D.  Kellogg,  for  many  years  secre¬ 
tary  of  the  Charity  Organization  Society  of  New 
York,  is  my  authority  for  the  statement  that  pre¬ 
vious  to  the  panic  of  1873,  “  there  was  no  effort 
at  the  systematic  organization  of  charitable  work 
in  any  part  of  this  country.”  The  poor  were 
with  us  of  course,  but  they  were  comparatively 
few  in  number,  and  voluntary  contributions  by 
neighbors,  or  through  church  societies  and  small 
public  institutions,  sufficed  to  meet  every  need. 
“It  was,”  says  Mr.  Kellogg,  “the  industrial  de¬ 
pression  which  followed  the  commercial  crisis  of 
1873,  throwing  crowds  out  of  work,  which  seems 
to  afford  the  starting  point  for  the  examination 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


140 

and  reformation  of  tlie  methods  of  charity.  At 
first  those  who  thought  that  relief  could,  or 
needed  to  be,  lifted  above  temporary  and  ma¬ 
terial  aid  were  few  in  number,  and  were  just  be¬ 
ginning  to  be  beard.”  Not  until  18/7  did  tbe 
city  of  Buffalo  lead  off  in  the  good  work,  by  es¬ 
tablishing  a  Charity  Organization  Society  of  the 
London  type.  Philadelphia,  Syracuse  and  New 
Haven  followed  in  1878 ;  Boston,  Portland,  Cin¬ 
cinnati,  Indianapolis  and  Poughkeepsie  in  1879 ; 
many  other  leading  cities  throughout  the  country 
in  the  years  immediately  following ;  but  not  until 
as  late  as  1882  was  it  possible  to  impress  the 
numerous  charitable  workers  in  New  York  City 
with  the  necessity  and  importance  of  this  step. 
Since  then  the  work  has  been  going  forward 
steadily,  in  ever  widening  circles,  throughout  the 
entire  United  States. 

It  would  make  dreary  reading  to  review  the 
twenty-five  years’  work  that  these  beneficent  or¬ 
ganizations  have  accomplished.  I  will,  therefore, 
take  one  year  as  typical  of  the  whole  period ;  and 
I  select  1892  as  representing  fair  average  condi¬ 
tions.  By  that  time  the  work  had  been  thor¬ 
oughly  systematized;  53  corresponding  societies 
had  been  established  in  the  larger  cities  through¬ 
out  the  country;  and  the  panic  of  1873  was  nine¬ 
teen  years  away. 

“  Go  back  to  1892,  when,  under  a  Republican  administration, 
we  found  ourselves  in  the  midst  of  prosperity;  we  found  the  fur¬ 
naces  were  lighted,  the  spindles  were  humming;  men  were  busy 
on  every  hand;  happiness  prevailed  throughout  the  country, 

— Senator  Marcus  A.  Hanna. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY. 


141 


“The  decade  between  1880  and  1890 — a  decade  which  is  prob¬ 
ably  to  rank  as  the  Golden  Age  of  the  Republic,  as  far  as  ma¬ 
terial  prosperity  is  concerned.” 

— Andrew  Carnegie. 

The  formal  and  nearly  uniform  reports  of  the 
53  Charity  Organization  Societies  then  at  work 
show  that  in  1892  they  ‘  6  placed  in  the  field  of  ad¬ 
ministration  and  personal  service  of  the  poor  an 
army  of  6,000  men  and  women.’ ’  These  same 
reports  show  that  an  average  of  seven  out  of 
every  ten  applicants  were  in  absolute  need  of  aid 
— thus  summarily  disproving  the  common  ejacu¬ 
lation  that  “any  man  can  get  work  in  this  coun¬ 
try  who  wants  it.  ’  ’  Of  35,000  cases  reported,  47 
per  cent,  were  under  twenty  years  of  age,  and 
four-fifths  of  these  mere  children.  Of  21,700 
cases  reported,  51  per  cent,  were  native-born 
Americans;  and  of  these,  76  per  cent,  could  both 
read  and  write,  while  six  per  cent,  could  read  but 
not  write.  Thus,  dire  circumstance  is  not  only 
making  paupers  of  native-born  Americans,  but 
educated  Americans  at  that!  “Lack  of  employ¬ 
ment,  ’  ’  the  reports  tell  us,  is  held  accountable  for 
the  most  important  cases  of  need ;  sickness  comes 
next,  and  intemperance  third ;  while  shiftlessness 
and  inefficiency  are  given  as  the  cause  of  need  in 
less  than  seven  per  cent,  of  the  cases. 

Now  mark  you,  these  are  average  conditions 
which  represented  53  cities  in  every  part  of  the 
United  States;  and  they  represented  conditions 
wholly  new  to  this  country.  Before  the  Civil 
War  such  things  were  unheard  of. 

New  York  is  typical  of  every  large  city  in  the 
country,  and  so  it  will  profit  us  to  study  the  work 


142 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


here  in  more  detail.  The  most  pitiable  story  that 
the  year’s  work  records,  is  the  fact  that  during 
1892,  a  year  of  fairly  prosperous  business  con¬ 
ditions,  there  were  in  the  city  of  New  York  alone 
no  less  than  2,786  new  families  added  to  the  list 
of  those  who  absolutely  required  relief ;  and  the 
individuals  constituting  these  families  numbered 
8,364. 

In  the  ‘  ‘  prosperous 9  9  year  1892,  there  were  ex¬ 
actly  1,288  separate  and  distinct  charitable  or¬ 
ganizations  actively  at  work  in  the  city  of  New 
York  alone.  The  names,  addresses,  and  active 
officers  of  these  societies  are  given  in  the  direc¬ 
tory  published  by  the  Society  for  that  year.  And 
striking  evidence  of  our  steady  and  rapid  increase 
in  pauperism  and  chronic  distress,  is  shown  by 
this  annual  directory.  These  publications  are 
uniform  in  type  and  size  of  page,  and  in  1883 
the  first  issue  required  169  pages  to  enumerate 
the  separate  charitable  institutions  throughout 
the  city.  By  1887  the  book  had  grown  to  227 
pages,  in  1890  to  400  pages,  in  1892  to  472  pages ; 
and  for  the  years  1900,  1901  and  1902  it  has  been 
averaging  from  680  to  over  700  pages. 

The  immediate  and  awful  effects  of  the  panic 
of  1893  may  be  judged  from  the  following  figures 
for  New  York  City  alone:  In  the  year  1893  the 
applications  for  assistance  rose  98  per  cent,  in 
October,  46  per  cent,  in  November,  and  86  per 
cent,  in  December,  over  the  corresponding 
months  of  1892.  The  “new  families  dealt  with” 
rose  from  2,786  in  1892  to  5,802  in  1893;  then  to 
7,381  in  1894;  and,  with  the  return  of  somewhat 
improved  conditions,  numbered  5,046  for  1895. 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY. 


143 


When  the  renewed  depression  again  set-in  during 
1896-97,  the  figures  rose  once  more;  and  in  the 
latter  year  the  annual  report  printed  in  bold 
italic  this  impressive  appeal : 

“ Above  all,  and  in  a  sense  inclusive  of  all , 
is  the  need  for  a  vast  increase  in  the  number 
of  men  and  women  who  give  personal  atten¬ 
tion  to  the  charitable  needs  of  their  neighbor¬ 
hoods.  ’  * 

Here  is  a  newspaper  clipping  which  I  cut  out 
and  filed  in  the  month  of  April,  1894 : 

“The  People's  Rescue  Mission  of  Rochester  (N.  Y.)  has 
compiled  some  figures  showing  the  occupations  of  the  men 
who  came  to  it  for  lodging  and  relief  during  the  month  of 
March  (1894).  The  great  majority  of  the  unfortunates  would 
have  been  classed  as  tramps  by  the  authorities,  so  that  the 
list  of  their  original  means  of  livelihood  is  of  interest  during 
the  hard  times.  Nine  hundred  and  twenty-one  men  applied  for 
lodgings  or  meals.  About  one-fourth  of  the  number  were  com¬ 
mon  laborers,  but  every  trade  was  represented.  Next  to  the 
laborers  came  the  machinists,  of  whom  there  were  50,  and  the 
list  also  included  45  carpenters,  39  teamsters,  39  masons,  34 
barbers,  32  bookkeepers,  30  railroad  men,  26  farmers,  26  clerks, 
20  moulders,  16  metal-polishers,  14  waiters,  13  painters,  10 
wagon-makers,  10  printers,  10  picture-frame  makers,  10  brick¬ 
layers,  10  weavers,  8  sailors,  7  tailors,  6  firemen,  4  butchers, 
5  spinners,  and  many  other  workers  at  trades  in  smaller  num¬ 
bers.  Four  artists  and  one  photographer  also  applied  for  re¬ 
lief." 

The  return  of  manufacturing  prosperity  since 
1899  has  of  course  relieved  the  situation  some¬ 
what.  But  wretchedness  is  still  chronic  and  wide¬ 
spread;  the  53  societies  of  1892  have  grown  to 
162  in  1902,  representing  every  part  of  the  coun¬ 
try;  each  of  these  is  modeled  after  the  same  plan 


144  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

and  in  regular  correspondence  with  all  the  others ; 
and  all  alike  are  co-operating  with  the  thousands 
of  local  church  societies,  public  institutions,  and 
smaller  groups  of  charitable  workers  in  their 
centers  of  population. 

What  is  still  happening  throughout  the  whole 
country  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  dur¬ 
ing  the  past  three  years— while  New  York  has 
been  building  the  rapid  transit  tunnel,  while 
hundreds  of  sky-scrapers  and  new  buildings  have 
been  going  up,  and  while  work  has  never  before 
been  so  plentiful  or  wages  so  high — the  “  number 
of  families  in  charge’ ’  in  New  York  City  in  1900 
was  3,131,  in  1901,  3,209,  and  in  1902,  3,129..  . 

The  concentration  of  our  population  in  cities 
and  in  manufacturing  towns,  is  the  cause  now 
commonly  assigned  for  this  poverty,  pauperism 
and  wretchedness — and  thus  the  evil  is  thought¬ 
lessly  attributed  to  the  folly  and  weakness  of 
those  who  leave  the  country  where  they  might  be 
independent  and  happy.  But  that  explanation  is 
much  worse  than  stupid:  It  represents  crass 
ignorance  of  facts  which  ought  to  be  common 
knowledge.  The  concentration  of  population  is 
an  effect— not  a  cause;  and  the  chief  reason  for 
the  concentration  is  to  be  found  in  the  one  word— 
Protection. 

For  full  forty  years  past  the  Eepublican  party, 
following  the  lead  of  promoters  intent  upon 
pocket  interest,  have  been  doing  their  utmost  to 
destroy  the  farming  industry— the  basis  of  all 
industries !  Year  after  year,  each  administration 
outdoing  the  others,  they  have  piled  indirect  taxes 
upon  the  farmer  until  agriculture  has  become  the 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY.  145 

most  unremunerative,  the  most  dreary,  and  the 
most  hopeless  pursuit  in  America.  “  Abandoned 
f arms’ ’  has  become  a  by-word  in  New  Eng¬ 
land;  negroes  and  the  poorest  of  poor  whites, 
living  in  log  huts  and  feeding  on  corn-bread  and 
bacon,  do  the  bulk  of  the  farming  in  the  South; 
and  throughout  the  fertile  and  bounteous  middle 
and  western  States,  the  standing  complaint  is 
that  intelligent,  able-bodied  and  ambitious  young 
men  and  women  are  flocking  to  the  cities — be¬ 
cause,  forsooth,  “farming  don’t  pay.”  Why 
should  it  pay?  The  farmer  is  heavily  taxed  upon 
his  hat,  coat  and  trousers,  his  shirt  and  his  shoes ; 
not  a  dry  grocery  that  goes  on  his  table  or  a  piece 
of  fresh  beef  that  he  buys  from  the  butcher,  but 
pays  tribute  to  the  Trusts ;  a  burdensome  tax  is 
levied  upon  every  implement  that  he  uses,  from 
hoe  to  plowshare  and  from  scythe  to  threshing 
machine;  he  is  almost  at  the  mercy  of  the  rail¬ 
roads,  the  live-stock  dealers,  the  tobacco  factors, 
and  grain  elevator  men,  who  “combine”  to  put 
freights  up  and  keep  prices  down;  and  under  all 
these  tyrannous  exactions  at  home,  he  is  forced 
to  labor,  from  daybreak  to  dark,  in  competition 
with  the  aristocracy-ridden  farm  labor  of  the  en¬ 
tire  world — for  without  our  enormous  exports  of 
agricultural  products  the  farmer’s  position  would 
long  ago  have  been  hopeless.  And  never  in  his¬ 
tory  have  the  exact  methods  of  oppressing  and 
impoverishing  the  farmer  been  more  clearly 
stated  than  in  the  recent  decision  of  Judge  Gross- 
cup  declaring  the  Beef  Trust  an  unlawful  con¬ 
spiracy.  Here  are  his  words : 


146 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


“The  averments  of  the  petition  may  be  summarized  as  fol¬ 
lows:— That  the  defendants  are  engaged  in  an  unlawful  com¬ 
bination  and  conspiracy  under  the  Sherman  act  in 

“(a)  Directing  and  requiring  their  purchasing  agents  at 
the  markets  where  the  live  stock  was  customarily  purchased  to 
refrain  from  bidding  against  each  other  when  making  such 
purchases ; 

“(b)  In  bidding  up  through  their  agents  the  prices  of  live 
stock  for  a  few  days  at  a  time,  to  induce  large  shipments,  and 
then  ceasing  from  bids,  to  obtain  the  live  stock  thus  shipped  at 
prices  much  less  than  it  would  bring  in  the  regular  way; 

“(c)  In  agreeing,  at  meetings  between  them,  upon  prices  to 
be  adopted  by  all  and  restriction  upon  the  quantities  of  meat 
shipped ; 

‘(d)  In  directing  and  requiring  their  agents  throughout  the 
United  States  to  impose  uniform  charges  for  cartage  for  de¬ 
livery,  thereby  increasing  to  dealers  and  consumers  the  charges 
for  such  meats;  and 

(e)  In  making  agreements  with  the  transportation  companies 
for  rebates  and  other  discriminative  rates. 

“No  one  can  doubt  that  these  averments  state  a  case  of  com¬ 
bination. 

1  ‘  The  statute  thus  interpreted  looks  solely  to  competition 
and  to  the  giving  of  competition  fair  play,  by  making  illegal 
any  effort  at  restriction  upon  competition. 

‘  ‘  Whatever  combination  has  the  direct  and  necessary  effect 
in  restricting  competition  is,  within  the  meaning  of  the  Sherman 
act,  as  now  interpreted,  restraint  of  trade. 

“Thus  defined,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  agreement  of 
the  defendants  to  refrain  from  bidding  against  each  other  in 
the  purchase  of  cattle,  is  combination  in  restraint  of  trade;  so 
also  their  agreement  to  bid  up  prices  to  stimulate  shipments, 
intending  to  cease  from  bidding  when  the  shipments  have  ar¬ 
rived.  The  same  result  follows  when  we  turn  to  the  combina¬ 
tion  of  defendants  to  fix  prices  upon  and  restrict  the  quantities 
of  meat  shipped  to  their  agents  or  their  customers.  Such 
agreements  can  be  nothing  less  than  restriction  upon  competition, 
and,  therefore,  combination  in  restraint  of  trade ;  and  thus 
viewed,  the  petition,  as  an  entirety,  makes  out  a  case  under  the 
Sherman  act. 1  ’ 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY.  147 

It  is  Protection  that  has  built-up  manufactur¬ 
ing  industries  at  the  direct  and  burdensome  ex¬ 
pense  of  our  agricultural  industries.  It  is  the 
familiar  delegations  of  scheming  manufacturers, 
led  by  pocket-interest  promoters  in  Washington, 
who  have  taxed  and  starved  our  sturdy  yeomanry 
into  abandoning  their  farms  with  the  hope  of 
bettering  their  poor  condition  as  wage-earners  in 
manufacturing  industries.  It  is  Protection  that 
has  confused  the  minds  of  the  people,  utterly  cor¬ 
rupted  our  political  life,  put  legal  privileges  and 
public  franchises  up  at  legislative  auction,  made 
the  United  States  Senate  a  tight  and  fast  ‘ ‘com¬ 
bination,’  *  driven  skilled  workers  into  trades- 
unions  in  sheer  self-defense ;  and  thus  Protection 
has  spread  poverty,  misery  and  pauperism 
among  multitudes  of  the  poor,  the  unskilled  and 
the  unfortunate,  who  have  been  led  or  driven  to 
our  cities.  And  the  millions  that  a  few  rich  men 
and  rich  families  have  amassed,  is  a  fair  measure 
of  the  unspeakable  evils  that  have  been  wrought 
through  false  teaching,  inspired  solely  by  selfish 
pocket-interest.  Stock- jobbing,  panic,  greenback- 
ism,  and,  especially,  land-grabbing  throughout 
our  vast  Public  Domain,  have  helped  along  the 

shameless  work :  but  the  worst  of  the  monstrous 

/ 

evils  that  afflict  us  is  Protection— and  this,  at  last, 
the  Trusts  have  made  plain ! 

Turning  now  from  human  wretchedness  in  our 
cities  and  manufacturing  centers,  to  the  Census 
records  of  increasing  pauperism,  crime  and  in¬ 
sanity  in  the  whole  country— since  the  Civil  War 
made  Protection  possible— we  find  an  exact  par¬ 
allel  to  the  hideous  story.  Just  as  there  was  no 


148 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


need  for  Organized  Charity  previous  to  the  panic 
of  1873,  so  the  Census  Bureau  did  not  deem  it 
worth  while  to  make  any  record  of  1 1  paupers  in 
almshouses’ ’  previous  to  1880.  But  they  have 
preserved  very  careful  statistics  of  crime  and 
insanity,  and  now  we  shall  see  the  price  the  des¬ 
perate  and  the  unfortunate  have  been  forced  to 
pay  for  the  legislation  wherewith  we  have  manu¬ 
factured  millionaires  wholesale . 

The  following  table,  taken  from  the  United 
States  Census,  explains  itself: 


Special  classes. 

Number  per  1,000,000  of  population. 

1800. 

1870. 

1880. 

1890. 

Insane . 

Criminals  in  prison  .  . 
Juvenile  criminals.  .  . 
Paupers  in  almshouses 

765 

607 

971 

853 

1,833 

1,169 

229 

1,320 

1,697 

1,315 

237 

1,166 

Now,  mark  you,  these  are  proportionate  fig¬ 
ures  ;  that  is  to  say,  in  each  one  million  of  popu¬ 
lation  we  had  765  insane  and  607  criminals  in 
1860 ;  but  in  1890  we  had  1,315  criminals  actually 
in  prison,  and  1,697  insane— or  more  than  a  two¬ 
fold  increase  in  crime  and  insanity  within  the 
space  of  less  than  a  single  generation. 

Observe  also  that  the  panic  of  1873  more  than 
doubled  the  relative  number  of  these  classes  in 
the  single  decade  to  1880;  that  under  the  more 
normal  conditions  of  the  decade  following,  the 
proportion  of  paupers  and  insane  slightly  de¬ 
creased,  but  the  criminals  continued  to  increase. 
This  means  simply  that  the  recklessness  of  the 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY.  149 

war  period  lifted  the  figures  for  criminals  from 
607  to  853  in  1870 ;  the  panic  of  1873  again  lifted 
them  to  1,169  in  1880;  Credit  Mobilier,  the  land 
grant  frauds  and  municipal  corruption  again 
lifted  them  to  1,315  in  1890 ;  and  meanwhile,  in¬ 
sanity,  juvenile  crime,  and  pauperism  have  fol¬ 
lowed  closely  in  the  wake  of  the  desperate  and 
daring. 

The  corresponding  figures  for  the  Census  of 
1900,  revealing  the  ravages  of  the  desperate  panic 
of  1893-97,  would  be  immensely  valuable  and  in¬ 
structive  at  this  time.  But,  alas,  the  Census  Bu¬ 
reau  has  suddenly  grown  weary  of  well-doing  in 
the  matter  of  these  speaking  records.  4  ‘  What  is 
everybody’s  business  is  nobody’s,”  runs  the 
familiar  adage.  But  the  business  of  disclosing 
the  seamy  side  of  our  Prosperity;  the  business 
of  making  an  official  record  of  the  vast  number 
of  empty  dinner  pails,  for  comparison  with  full 
dinner  pails — this  business  has  suddenly  been 
stopped !  I  have  made  formal  application  to  the 
Census  Bureau  for  the  needed  information,  and 
this  is  the  reply  that  comes  back: 

Census  Office, 

Washington,  D.  C., 

February  19,  1903. 

Mr.  John  R.  Dunlap, 

120  Liberty  St.,  New  York  City. 

Dear  Sir:  In  reply  to  your  request  of  the  11th  instant  for  cer¬ 
tain  figures  showing  the  proportion  of  Insane,  Criminals  in 
prison,  Juvenile  Criminals,  and  Paupers  in  almshouses  per 
1,000,000  of  population  in  1900,  I  regret  to  say  that  we  are 
unable  to  furnish  this  information.  The  statistics  of  special 
classes,  authorized  by  the  Census  Act  of  1900 ,  were  not  to  be 


150 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


taken  up  until  after  the  12th  Census  Reports  were  completed; 
consequently  we  have  not  yet  commenced  to  collect  the  data. 

Very  respectfully, 

W.  A.  KING, 

Chief  Statistician. 

This  is  1903,  and  they  “have  not  yet  com¬ 
menced  to  collect  the  data.”  And  they  never  will 
commence  to  do  the  work  honestly  again,  until 
American  freemen  put  a  President  in  the  White 
House  who  will  make  it  his  business  to  see  that 
a  complete  census  of  the  jails,  prisons,  peniten¬ 
tiaries,  alms-houses  and  insane  asylums  is  first 
carefully  taken,  and  then  accurately  published 
for  the  information  of  an  enlightened  world  that 
will  stand  aghast  at  the  wretched  record  of  hu¬ 
man  misery. 

Daily  and  hourly  we  are  advised  of  the  stupen¬ 
dous  liberality  of  the  leader  of  the  Protection 
hosts.  Not  a  week  passes  but  doth  amaze  the 
people  with  a  blazoned  record  of  millions  dis¬ 
pensed  for  university  endowments  and  labora¬ 
tory  researches  by  the  masterful  genius  of  “in¬ 
dustrial  combinations” — which  “are  a  neces¬ 
sity.  ’  ’  And  from  the  mouth  of  every  Prophet  of 
Prosperity  we  hear  one  continuous  paean  of  praise 
for  the  Napoleon  of  Finance  who  brings  order  out 
of  industrial  chaos  and  contention,  and  links  our 
railroads  in  harmonious  “community  of  inter¬ 
est”  with  our  shipping  facilities  and  great  stores 
of  natural  wealth. 

But  suddenly— by  the  Act  of  1900— the  work 
of  the  Census  is  reorganized;  and  straightway  it 
is  provided  that  the  business  of  enumerating 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY. 


151 


criminals,  paupers  and  insane  is  not  to  be  taken 
up  until  after  the  12 th  Census  reports  are  com¬ 
pleted! 

“  Boston,  Feb.  24,  1903.— In  his  address  at  the  Tremont 
Temple  last  evening,  at  which  Governor  Bates  presided,  Gen¬ 
eral  William  Booth  of  the  Salvation  Army  startled  his  hearers 
with  the  following: 

“  ‘We  have  in  our  shelters  at  this  time  more  than  13,000 
criminals,  and  if  the  rich  do  not  give  us  enough  funds  to  carry 
on  our  work  we  will  turn  loose  the  13,000  men  and  give  them  the 
addresses  of  these  rich. 

* 1  ‘  The  trouble  with  the  ministers  of  the  different  churches, * 
continued  General  Booth,  *  is  that  they  say  so  little  of  heaven 
and  hell.  The  ministers  should  give  talks  on  the  Salvation  Army 
and  advocate  its  broad  policies  and  principles  and  take  up 
collections  and  send  us  money.  The  work  of  the  army  does  not 
represent  any  fad  in  religion,  but  a  religion  based  on  the  original 
laws  of  God.  The  Army  has  a  method  of  its  own,  and  that  is, 
to  preach  Christianity  where  there  is  no  religion  and  to  bring 
those  to  Christ  who  have  no  Church/  ” 

—  The  New  York,  Sun. 

Pauperism  is  the  last  ghastly  confession  that 
a  freeman  will  make.  He  will  work  night  and 
day;  he  will  starve  by  inches;  he  will  borrow 
from  friends  and  kinsmen;  he  will  wreck  all 
credit  with  baker,  butcher  and  grocer;  he  will 
beg  for  others  as  a  pretext  for  feeding  his  own 
hunger ;  towards  the  end  he  will  accept,  in  tearful 
helplessness,  the  tendered  aid  of  a  sympathetic 
charity  worker;  and  then  at  last,  manhood  dead¬ 
ened  and  hope  forever  gone— he  becomes  a  public 
pauper ! 

“I  know  that  in  this  country  and  city  (New  York)  there  is 
a  widening  chasm  between  the  rich  and  poor.  I  mix  with  the 
poor  and  know  their  hearts.  You  do  not  mix  with  them,  and 


152 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


fail  to  realize  the  truth.  We  are  on  the  eve  of  a  great  catas¬ 
trophe  unless  we  act  upon  these  problems.  How  are  you,  as 
business  men,  going  to  meet  them?  If  you  wait,  we  will  soon 
be  on  the  threshold  of  revolution.  You  must  recognize  and 
understand  the  wrongs  of  the  poor.  You  must  uplift  the  poor 
of  the  country,  of  New  York,  of  the  east  side.  I  thank  God 
that  the  money  question  has  been  settled  as  it  has.  I  am  thank¬ 
ful  that  it  was  raised  at  this  time.  It  has  focused  the  main  ques¬ 
tion,  the  widening  abyss  between  capital  and  labor,  the  rich 
and  the  poor,  so  that  we  may  realize  its  importance.  Shall  we 
wait  until  it  is  too  late?  That  is  what  the  barons  of  France 
did,  and  when  the  wrongs  of  the  people  reached  their  full  their 
authority  was  overthrown.  ’  ’ 

— Rev.  Dr.  E.  Walpole  Warren. 


“Philip  Frank,  a  letter  carrier  at  Station  T,  in  Tremont, 
was  overcome  by  heat  while  covering  his  route  last  summer  and 
died  on  August  8.  His  widow,  Mary,  has  been  made  insane  in 
struggling  to  support  herself  and  three  children.  She  was  re¬ 
moved  yesterday  to  Bellevue  Hospital  with  her  daugther,  Agatha, 
aged  1  year.  Her  two  other  children,  Joseph,  aged  6  years,  and 
Frederick,  aged  2  years,  were  sent  to  the  Gerry  society’s  rooms. 

“When  her  husband  died,  Mrs.  Frank’s  mother  wanted  her  to 
return  to  Kansas,  where  she  lived  before  she  was  married.  Her 
pride  would  not  allow  her  to  take  her  children  home  to  be  sup¬ 
ported  by  her  parents.  Pride  also  led  her  to  refuse  all  assistance 
from  her  neighbors  in  Alden  place,  Tremont,  and  when  they 
knew  she  and  the  children  must  be  cold  and  hungry,  she  in¬ 
sisted  that  she  was  very  comfortably  off.  Her  insanity  takes  the 
form  of  imagining  she  has  plenty  of  money.” 

—  The  New  York  Sun. 

But  this  appalling  increase  of  insanity  and 
crime  among  American  freemen,  tells  quite  an¬ 
other  story— For  this  is  the  testimony  which  stu¬ 
dents  of  criminology  and  insanity  experts  assure 
us  gives  unmistakable  evidence  of  the  increasing 
stress  and  strain  under  which  our  people  must 
struggle  to  get  on  in  the  world.  The  same  por- 


THE  SEAMY  SIDE  OF  PROSPERITY 


153 


tentous  significance  holds  true  of  the  correspond¬ 
ing  increase  in  that  most  pitiable  and  awful  of 
crimes — suicide;  and  here,  as  elsewhere,  “lack 
of  work”  is  the  cause  which  yields  the  greatest 
increase.  In  the  city  of  New  York  alone  the  sui¬ 
cides  for  1893  showed  an  increase  of  nearly  30 
per  cent.— attributable  almost  wholly  to  the  rav¬ 
ages  of  the  panic. 

“The  total  number  of  suicides  in  two  great  American  cities 
during  the  last  thirty  years  have  been: 

Period.  New  York.  Chicago. 

1870  to  1880  . 1,369  461 

1880  to  1890  . 2,063  1,066 

1890  to  1900  . 3,508  3,132 

“These  numbers  are  very  large  (nearly  one  suicide  daily  for 
New  York  during  the  last  decade),  but  they  need  to  be  put  into 
another  form  in  order  to  study  the  really  important  question 
which  is:  Are  suicides  increasing? 

“From  a  list  of  28,563  suicides  reported  from  fourteen  great 
cities  of  the  United  States  during  the  last  generation,  it  ap¬ 
pears  that  the  number  of  deaths  from  that  cause  per  1,000,000 
persons  was  in— 


1870  . 

.  87 

1885  . 

. .  131 

1871  . 

.  85 

1886  . 

. 136 

1872  _ _ 

. 107 

1887  . 

. 137 

1873  . 

. 103 

1888  . 

. 142 

1874  . 

. 121 

1889  . 

. 142 

1875  . 

. 119 

1890  . 

. 138 

1876  . 

. 117 

1891  . 

. 157 

1877  . 

. 125 

1892  . 

. 153 

1878  . 

. 116 

1893  . 

. 185 

1879  . 

. 106 

1894  . 

. 180 

1880  . 

. 114 

1895  . 

. 183 

1881  . 

. 128 

1896  . 

. 189 

1882  . 

. 143 

1897  . 

. 196 

1883  . 

. 126 

1898  . 

. 205 

1884  . . 

1899  . 

154 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


< ‘The  year  of  the  panic,  1893,  is  well  marked  in  the  list 
and  since  that  date  there  is  a  marked  increase  in  the  number 
of  deaths  by  suicide. 7f  — The  New  York  Sun. 

Now  if  some  one  of  our  trained  experts  in 
Charity  Organization  work  will  simply  make  it 
his  or  her  business  to  compile  a  table  showing 
(1)  the  total  number  of  charitable  societies,  pub¬ 
lic  and  private,  now  in  existence  in  the  United 
States;  (2)  the  number  of  persons  regularly  em¬ 
ployed,  and,  approximately,  the  number  occa¬ 
sionally  employed  in  administering  charity;  and 
(3)  the  approximate  number  of  persons  outside 
“paupers  in  alms-houses ’ ’  who  are  in  need  of 
regular  and  temporary  assistance — that  one  tabu¬ 
lar  exhibit  will  do  more  to  arouse  the  righteous 
wrath  of  American  freemen,  and  to  overthrow 
the  infamous  system  of  Protection,  Privilege  and 
Monopoly,  which  is  cursing  us,  than  any  one 
thing  else  that  can  be  done.  For  we  need  nothing 
more  than  the  facts,  stated  with  authority  in  cold 
print— WITHOUT  FEAE-to  open  the  flood¬ 
gates  of  human  sympathy  for  the  poor  and  help¬ 
less,  and  to  make  a  hideous  spectacle  of  every 
brazen  schemer  who  longer  dares  to  shout  Protec¬ 
tion,  Prosperity,  and  Panic. 


A  FEW  PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


‘  ‘  That  government  is  best  which  governs  least.  ’  ’ 

“I  am  not  among  those  who  fear  the  people.  They,  and  not 
the  rich,  are  our  dependence  for  continued  freedom.  And  to  pre¬ 
serve  their  independence,  we  must  not  let  our  rulers  load  us  with 
perpetual  debt.  We  must  maxe  our  election  between  economy 
and  liberty  or  profusion  and  servitude.” 

—Thomas  Jefferson. 

1  ‘  T  am  a  warm  advocate  for  limited  monarchy.  ’  ’ 

“A  national  debt,  if  it  is  not  excessive,  will  be  a  national 
blessing,  a  powerful  cement  of  union,  a  necessity  for  keeping  up 
taxation,  and  a  spur  to  industry. ;  ’ 

— Alexander  Hamilton. 


Chapter  V. 

We  must  ger  back  to  first  principles. 

And  the  thing  more  needful  than  all  others,  is 
that  we  shall  now  clearly  understand  exactly  what 
our  Revolutionary  fathers  had  in  mind  when  they 
gave  legal  form  to  American  institutions. 

For  throughout  a  whole  generation,  from  1765 
to  1800,  they  were  continuously  engaged  in 
the  absorbing  study  and  tragic  test  of  every  prob¬ 
lem  in  governmental  science  and  constructive 
statesmanship.  They  studied  Greek  history,  stud¬ 
ied  Roman  history,  studied  European  history,  and 
they  knew  Biblical  history  by  heart.  Every  phil¬ 
osophy,  every  theory,  and  every  known  form  of 
government  was  up  for  consideration;  and  each 
was  debated,  written  about,  hotly  contested,  and 


156  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

finally  voted  upon  by  able  and  determined  men 
who  staked  their  lives,  their  fortunes,  and  the  fu¬ 
ture  of  their  families  upon  the  soundness  of  their 
thinking  and  the  lasting  worth  of  their  work. 

The  man  who  thinks  for  himself  needs  only  to 
turn  back  to  the  history  of  that  period— especially 
its  pamphlets,  its  broadsides,  its  resolutions,  its 
addresses,  its  poetry,  its  satire,  and  notably  the 
private  correspondence  of  its  principal  actors — 
to  find  the  most  wonderful  literature  that  has  ever 
yet  been  penned  upon  the  subject  of  governmental 
science.  And  if  the  ardent  reformers  of  our  time 
whose  heads  are  sadly  confused  by  theories  of 
altruism  and  socialism,  single  tax  and  govern¬ 
ment  ownership,  free  silver,  fiat  money,  and  the 
whole  roster  of  sentimental  paternalism — if  they 
will  simply  turn  to  these  stirring  records  of  bold 
thought,  courageous  leadership,  and  constructive 
action,  I  promise  they  will  get  an  uplift  of  hope, 
a  renewal  of  inspiration  and  a  preparation  for 
effective  public  service  to  which  they  have  been 
strangers  heretofore.  For  here  were  men  who 
fought  as  they  thought,  who  builded  as  they 
planned,  and  who  achieved  the  grandest  work  in 
the  cause  of  social  betterment  that  the  world  has 
ever  known — men  who  were  so  far  in  advance  of 
their  own  age,  and  of  ours,  that  the  prosperity 
they  created  and  the  opportunities  they  opened, 
have  simply  blinded  us  to  the  fundamental  char¬ 
acter  of  the  reforms  they  accomplished. 

The  serious  work  began  when  the  Stamp  Act 
threw  the  Colonies  into  furious  revolt  against  the 
tyranny  of  the  mother  country;  and  the  stirring 
contest  never  ended  until  Thomas  Jefferson  was 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY.  157 

elected  to  the  Presidency  in  1800.  That  closed  the 
debate.  The  American  people  had  decided  irre¬ 
vocably  in  favor  of  federated  and  representative 
government  by  the  people,  as  opposed  to  every 
known  form  of  government  by  a  king  or  a  legal¬ 
ized  aristocracy — which  means  simply  govern¬ 
ment  by  force  of  armies  and  navies,  as  in  Europe 
to-day. 

My  immediate  purpose,  therefore,  will  be  to 
contrast  the  two  great  leaders  of  that  time,  and  to 
prove,  by  citations  from  history,  first,  that  Alex¬ 
ander  Hamilton  sincerely  believed  that  the  British 
system  of  government  was  the  best  under  the  sun ; 
secondly,  that  he  did  everything  he  could  do  to 
shape  our  government  after  that  model ;  and,  last¬ 
ly,  that  he  introduced  the  identical  systems  of 
Protection,  complicated  finance,  and  party  man¬ 
agement  which  gave  us  the  secession  convention 
at  Hartford  in  1815 ;  gave  us  the  Nullification  re¬ 
bellion  of  1832 ;  gave  us  the  Civil  War  of  1861-65 ; 
and  which  have  now  culminated  in  the  Trusts, 
combinations,  and  corrupt  political  machine  for 
which  the  Republican  party  stands  squarely  re¬ 
sponsible. 

In  doing  the  work  Hamilton  was  undoubtedly 
honest  and  clean-handed  himself.  But  he  was 
British  and  “aristocratic”  to  the  core;  he  rea¬ 
soned  precisely  as  Tory  statesmen  reasoned  then 
and  reason  now ;  he  had  no  sympathy  with  Ameri¬ 
can  aspirations,  and  absolutely  no  faith  in  a  gov¬ 
ernment  by  the  people ;  and  hence,  because  of  mis¬ 
taken  convictions  and  blindness  to  the  future,  his 
fine  courage  and  dashing  work  served  only  to 
make  him  chiefly  responsible  for  the  awful  legacy 


158 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


of  evil  which  our  fathers  have  suffered  and  which 
we  now  endure— as  Jefferson,  his  victorious  op¬ 
ponent,  clearly  foresaw  and  prophetically  fore¬ 
told! 

But  before  we  contrast  the  principles  and  poli¬ 
cies  of  the  two  .Revolutionary  leaders  in  national 
affairs,  let  us  first  take  a  look  at  the  preparatory 
and  constructive  work  of  the  great  leaders  of  Co¬ 
lonial  New  England  and  Colonial  Virginia— let  us 
recall  the  two  old  men  who  prepared  the  way ;  and 
who  gave  direction,  inspiration,  courage,  and  op¬ 
portunity,  to  the  younger  men  who  were  to  shape 
our  national  destiny. 

“The  world  is  their  sepulcher,  and  wherever 
there  is  speech  of  noble  deeds,  there  they  will 
be  remembered.  ’ 7 

It  was  Samuel  Adams  who  organized  and  led 
the  little  band  of  brave  men  from  the  Old  South 
Church  to  the  docks ;  and  it  was  none  other  than 
Samuel  Adams  himself— a  patriot’s  will  in  his 
heart  and  a  strong  man’s  resolution  in  his  mind— 
who  tossed  the  first  chest  of  historic  tea  into  Bos¬ 
ton  Harbor.  The  fashionable  ladies  and  gentle¬ 
men  who  now  lead  Boston  society,  like  the  thrifty 
literary  folk  of  all  New  England,  still  boast  very 
proudly  of  that  famous  Tea  Party.  But  Dr.  John 
Fiske  found  it  necessary  to  write  an  essay  to  ex¬ 
plain  the  significance  of  the  event  to  them ;  for  in 
the  whole  libraries  they  have  written— about  the 
Mayflower,  the  Puritans,  the  battle  of  Bunker 
Hill,  the  Liberators,  and  all  the  rest— we  find  only 
rare,  and  rather  hesitating,  references  to  the  su¬ 
premely  important  work  that  Samuel  Adams  did 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


159 


— No  sort  of  adequate  recognition  of  the  obvious 
fact  that  he  was  the  undisputed  leader,  the  per¬ 
sonal  embodiment,  the  brains,  and  the  very  soul 
of  New  England’s  revolt  against  monarchy,  aris¬ 
tocracy,  and  tyranny. 

But  it  is  not  hard  to  see  why  his  just  fame  and 
splendid  work  have  been  thus  neglected  by  the  in¬ 
tensely  “literary”  aristocracy  of  wealth  which 
holds  its  court  in  the  Back  Bay.  For  in  addition 
to  being  a  truly  great  man,  Samuel  Adams  was 
also  a  “townsman.”  He  led  in  Town  Meeting; 
he  mixed  with  the  people;  he  wrote  for  the  news¬ 
papers;  he  organized  the  Committees  of  Corre¬ 
spondence  throughout  New  England ;  he  led  in  the 
Assembly;  he  was  elected  to  the  first  Continental 
Congress ;  and  beyond  all  this,  he  had  a  supreme 
contempt  for  the  fops  and  fools  of  “society;”  an 
inveterate  hatred  of  Tories  and  aristocrats ;  and  a 
burning  love  of  liberty  which  inspired  all  his  long, 
laborious,  and  resplendent  services  in  laying  the 
very  foundation  stones  of  democratic  institutions. 

And  as  evidence  of  the  exalted  esteem  in  which 
he  was  held  by  Jefferson,  witness  this  from  the 
personal  letter  addressed  to  him  just  after  that 
immortal  document,  Jefferson’s  first  inaugural 
address,  had  been  given  to  the  world : 

“In  meditating  the  matter  of  that  address  I  often  asked  my¬ 
self,  is  this  exactly  in  the  spirit  of  the  patriarch  of  liberty,  Sam¬ 
uel  Adams?  Is  it  as  he  would  express  it?  Will  he  approve  of 
it? 

“I  have  felt  a  great  deal  for  our  country  in  the  times  we  have 
seen.  But  individually  for  no  one  as  for  yourself.  When  I  have 
been  told  that  you  were  avoided,  insulted,  frowned  on,  I  could 
but  ejaculate,  ‘Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they 


160 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


do.  7  I  confess  I  felt  an  indignation  for  you  which  for  myself  I 
have  been  able  under  every  trial  to  keep  entirely  passive.  How¬ 
ever,  the  storm  is  over,  and  we  are  in  port.  7  7 

Then  after  the  great  patriot  had  passed  on  to 
his  final  rest,  Jefferson  again  wrote  this: 

“I  can  say  he  was  a  truly  great  man,  wise  in  council,  fertile 
in  resources,  immovable  in  his  purposes,  and  had,  I  think,  a 
greater  share  than  any  other  member  in  advising  and  directing 
our  measures  in  the  northern  wrar  especially.  As  a  speaker  he 
could  not  be  compared  with  his  living  colleague  and  namesake 
(John  Adams — a  second  cousin)  whose  deep  conceptions,  nervous 
style,  and  undaunted  firmness  made  him  truly  our  bulwark  in 
debate.  But  Mr.  Samuel  Adams,  although  not  of  fluent  elocu¬ 
tion,  was  so  rigorously  logical,  so  clear  in  his  views,  abundant  in 
good  sense,  and  master  always  of  his  subject,  that  he  commanded 
the  most  profound  attention  whenever  he  arose  in  an  assembly 
by  which  the  froth  of  declamation  was  heard  with  the  most  sov- 
reign  contempt. 7  7 

Down  in  Virginia  was  another  master-builder, 
in  the  person  of  George  Mason — a  man  whose 
name  is  now  scarcely  remembered  outside  his  own 
state,  but  whose  high  powers  and  great  personal 
influence  were  of  inestimable  service  to  the  cause 
of  American  institutions.  He  was  a  Cavalier  by 
descent;  he  boasted  a  proud  family  history;  he 
owned  and  managed  vast  plantations ;  and  he  was 
the  acknowledged  peer  of  every  gentleman  in  the 
Colony.  But  he  had  a  patriot’s  soul;  he  personi¬ 
fied  the  genius  of  democracy  at  its  best ;  and  with 
pen  and  voice  he  proved  himself  a  very  host  in 
overcoming  the  resistance  of  his  Royalist  and 
aristocratic  neighbors. 

It  was  George  Mason  who  penned  that  immortal 
document  the  Virginia  Bill  of  Rights,  adopted 
June  12,  1776;  and  who  also  wrote  the  Virginia 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY.  161 

Constitution— the  two  forming  the  first  formal 
charter  of  a  “government  by  the  people”  on 
American  soil;  which  were  “afterwards  close¬ 
ly  imitated  by  the  other  United  States. ’  9  So,  too, 
it  was  George  Mason,  in  a  fury  of  democratic  con¬ 
viction  at  the  close  of  the  Convention  in  Philadel¬ 
phia  in  1787,  who  declared  that  he  would  chop  off 
his  right  hand  rather  than  sign  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  as  originally  adopted— be¬ 
cause  in  his  soul  he  believed  it  would  give  us  “a 
government  without  limitation  of  powers,”  and 
thus  lead  straight  on  to  an  aristocracy  and  monar¬ 
chy. 

‘Do  gentlemen  mean  (he  said)  to  pave  the  way  to  hereditary 
monarchy?  Do  they  flatter  themselves  that  the  people  will  ever 
consent  to  such  an  innovation?,  If  they  do,  I  venture  to  tell  them 
they  are  mistaken.  The  people  never  will  consent  !  Notwith¬ 
standing  the  oppression  and  injustice  experienced  among  us  from 
democracy,  the  genius  of  the  people  is  in  favor  of  it;  and  the 
genius  of  the  people  must  be  consulted !  ’  ’ 

We  ought  to  attend  to  the  rights  of  every  class  of  the  people. 
He  had  often  wondered  at  the  indifference  of  the  superior  classes 
of  society  to  this  dictate  of  humanity  and  policy ;  considering, 
that,  however  affluent  their  circumstances  or  elevated  their  situ¬ 
ations,  might  be,  the  course  of  a  few  years  not  only  might,  but 
certainly  would,  distribute  their  posterity  throughout  the  low¬ 
est  classes  of  society.  Every  selfish  motive,  therefore,  every  fam¬ 
ily  attachment,  ought  to  recommend  such  a  system  of  policy  as 
would  provide  no  less  carefully  for  the  rights  and  happiness  of 
the  lowest,  than  of  the  highest,  order  of  citizens. '  ’ 

Furthermore,  it  was  George  Mason’s  Spartan 
fight  in  the  Virginia  Convention,  his  “inflexible 
integrity  and  unbending  republicanism,”  which 
then  and  there  pledged  us  the  indispensable  and 
priceless  amendments  incorporated  in  the  Consti- 


202  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

tution  in  1791  in  lieu  of  a  Bill  of  Bights.  As  a 
measure  of  the  imperative  need,  for  these  ten 
amendments,  let  me  quote  two  of  them : 

•‘Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting  an  establishment  of 
religion,  or  prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof;  or  of  abridg¬ 
ing  the  freedom  of  speech,  or  of  the  press;  or  the  right  of  the 
people  peaceably  to  assemble,  and  to  petition  the  Government  for 
a  redress  of  grievaneee. 7  7 

‘  ‘  No  person  shall  be  *  *  *  *  deprived  of  life,  liberty  or 

property  without  due  process  of  law;  nor  shall  private  property 
be  taken  for  public  use  without  just  compensation. 7  7 

Long  years  after  Mason  was  dead,  lingering 
envy  tried  to  rob  him  of  his  work ;  but  when  they 
questioned  Jefferson  upon  the  subject,  this  was 

the  reply : 

‘  ‘  The  fact  is  unquestionable  that  the  Bill  of  Rights  and  the 
Constitution  of  Virginia  were  drawu  originally  by  George  Mason, 
one  of  our  really  great  men,  and  of  the  first  order  of  greatness. 

In  short,  it  was  George  Mason  of  Virginia,  and 
Samuel  Adams  of  Massachusetts,  who  were  the 
fathers,  the  constructive  founders  of  American 
democracy — because  it  was  the  daring  leadership, 
the  wise  counsel,  the  documentary  writing,  the 
grim  fighting,  and  the  irresistible  power  and  in¬ 
fluence  of  these  two  old  men  in  their  home  assem¬ 
blies,  that  made  possible  all  the  more  brilliant  and 
telling  work  of  the  younger  men  on  the  larger 

stage  of  national  affairs. 

Miss  Kate  Mason  Rowland,  in  an  admirable  bi¬ 
ography,  has  restored  to  Mason  all  his  own ;  and 
so  I  am  sure  Dr.  John  Fiske’s  telling  Essay  on 
“The  Deeper  Significance  of  the  Boston  Tea  Par¬ 
ty  ’  ’  will  lead  straight  on  to  a  restoration  of  Sam- 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY.  163 

uel  Adams’  birth-right  to  historic  immortality. 
And  hereafter  when  Americans  wish  to  know  the 
“deeper  significance”  of  American  democracy, 
let  them  begin  by  studying  the  work  of  these  two 
men.  For  beyond  all  cavil  or  question,  these  were 
the  sturdy  pilots  whose  clear  heads,  strong  hands, 
and  dauntless  courage  steered  Massachusetts 
and  Virginia  safely  into  the  harbor  of  “a  govern¬ 
ment  of  the  people  by  the  people  and  for  the  peo¬ 
ple.  ’  ’ 

In  the  field  of  national  history  the  great  names 
are  soon  recalled.  Benjamin  Franklin  was  not 
only  philosopher,  inventor,  diplomat,  and  patri¬ 
arch  of  democratic  teaching,  but  he  was  ever- 
ready  and  ever-present  with  wit  and  humor  and 
worldly  wisdom  to  aid  manfully  in  the  great 
cause.  To  Patrick  Henry  belongs  a  deathless 
fame,  for  the  lion-hearted  courage  and  the  over¬ 
powering  eloquence  which  fired  the  American 
heart  to  action.  Thomas  Jefferson  penned  the 
Declaration  of  Independence ;  and  then,  as  we  shall 
soon  see,  proved  himself  the  creative  and  con¬ 
structive  genius  who,  cutting  adrift  from  the  past, 
gave  body  and  soul  to  every  novel  and  enduring 
feature  of  American  institutions.  John  Adams 
was  “the  Colossus  of  debate”  in  carrying  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  against  strong  op¬ 
position  in  the  conservative  Continental  Con¬ 
gress.  George  Washington  fought  the  battles 
that  won  us  Independence ;  presided  over  the  Con¬ 
stitutional  Convention;  was  first  President,  and 
first  in  the  abiding  trust  of  his  countrymen ;  and 
he  is  rightly  known  for  all  time  as  the  Father  of 
his  country— for  without  his  genius  in  judgment 


164 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


and  command,  the  work  could  not  have  been  com¬ 
pleted.  At  the  very  crisis  of  the  Revolution,  in 
the  darkest  days  of  Valley  Forge,  it  was  Thomas 
Paine  who  re-kindled  patriotism,  and  re-inspired 
conviction,  with  the  irresistible  logic  of  his  flash¬ 
ing  and  truly  wonderful  pen.  James  Madison 
was  unequivocally  the  Father  of  the  Constitution; 
for  it  was  he  who  started  the  movement  in  the 
Continental  Congress;  it  was  he  who  called  the 
first  convention  at  Annapolis;  it  was  he  who 
called  the  second  convention  at  Philadelphia;  it 
was  he  who  induced  Washington  to  preside;  and 
then  with  masterful  skill  and  tact,  he  shaped  the 
brilliant  work  of  both  Hamilton  and  J ay  in  writ¬ 
ing  the  Federalist.  And  finally,  it  was  J ohn  Mar¬ 
shall  who,  as  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
laid  the  foundations  and  reared  the  superstruc¬ 
ture  of  the  most  august  tribunal  of  justice  known 
to  mankind. 

Many  other  famous  names,  each  with  a  record 
of  great  work  grandly  done,  might  be  added  to  the 
list ;  but  unquestionably  these  were  the  supreme 
leaders. 

And  now  for  early  stock- jobbing! 

I  come  to  the  point  abruptly,  and  I  use  strong 
language —because  Oliver  Cromwell,  Thomas 
Carlyle,  and  Andrew  Jackson  have  taught  us  that 
it  should  be  used — because  I  do  not  propose  that 
my  readers  shall  waste  time  over  befuddling  and 
insufferable  ceremony.  The  stock- jobbers  were 
the  men  who  gave  Hamilton  a  temporary  show  of 
political  power — precisely  as  the  stock-jobbers 
are  today  the  men  in  actual  control  of  the  Repub¬ 
lican  machine. 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


165 


Writing  to  George  Mason  from  Philadelphia 
under  date  of  February  4,  1791— while  Hamil¬ 
ton’s  schemes  were  hatching  under  his  very  eyes 
—Thomas  Jefferson  said  this : 

“What  is  said  in  our  country  (Virginia)  of  the  fiscal  arrange¬ 
ments  now  going  on?  I  really  fear  their  effect  when  I  consider 
the  present  temper  of  the  Southern  States.  Whether  these  meas¬ 
ures  be  right  or  wrong  abstractedly,  more  attention  should  be 
paid  to  the  general  (public)  opinion.  However,  all  will  pass — 
the  Excise  will  pass— the  Bank  will  pass. ,  ’ 

“The  only  corrective  of  what  is  corrupt  in  our  present  form  of 
government,  will  be  the  augmentation  of  the  numbers  in  the 
lower  House;  so  as  to  get  a  more  agricultural  representation, 
which  may  put  that  interest  above  that  op  the  stock-jobbers.  ' ' 

Then,  under  date  of  Sept.  9,  1792,  when  events 
had  shown  Jefferson  plainly  that  principle  de¬ 
manded  his  withdrawal  from  the  Cabinet,  he 
wrote  Washington  this : 

“Ihat  I  have  utterly,  in  my  private  conversations,  disapproved 
of  the  system  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  I  acknowledge 
and  avow;  and  this  was  not  merely  a  speculative  difference.  His 
system  flowed  from  principles  adverse  to  liberty,  and  was  cal¬ 
culated  to  undermine  and  demolish  the  Hepublic,  by  creating  an 
influence  of  his  department  over  the  members  of  the  Legislature. 
I  saw  this  influence  actually  produced,  and  its  first  fruits  to  be 
the  establishment  of  the  great  outlines  of  his  project  by  the  votes 
of  the  very  persons  who,  having  swallowed  his  bait,  were  laying 
themselves  out  to  profit  by  his  plans;  and  that  had  these  persons 
withdrawn,  as  those  interested  in  a  question  ever  should,  the  vote 
of  the  disinterested  majority  was  clearly  the  reverse  of  what  they 
made  it.  These  were  no  longer  the  votes,  then,  of  the  representa¬ 
tives  of  the  people,  but  of  deserters  from  the  rights  and  inter¬ 
ests  of  the  people;  and  it  was  impossible  to  consider  their  deci¬ 
sions,  which  had  nothing  in  view  but  to  enrich  themselves,  as  the 
measures  of  the  fair  majority,  which  ought  always  to  be  respect¬ 
ed.  If  what  was  actually  doing  begot  uneasiness  in  those  who 
wished  for  virtuous  government,  what  was  further  proposed  was 


166 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


not,  less  threatening  to  the  friends  of  the  Constitution.  For,  in 
a  report  on  the  subject  of  manufactures  (still  to  be  acted  on), 
it  was  expressly  assumed  that  the  General  Government  has  a  right 
to  exercise  all  powers  which  may  be  for  the  general  welfare ,  that 
is  to  say,  all  the  legitimate  -powers  of  government ;  since  no  gov¬ 
ernment  has  a  legitimate  right  to  do  what  is  not  for  the  welfare 
of  the  governed. 7  7 

Some  time  later,  making  formal  record  of  Ham¬ 
ilton’s  transactions  for  the  eyes  of  history— mak¬ 
ing  a  record  which  we  and  all  future  generations 
of  fighting  freemen  might  plainly  see  and  clearly 
understand— Jefferson  wrote  what  follows.  The 
quotations  are  lengthy  for  “busy”  men;  but  they 
are  vivid  in  vital  teaching;  and  they  are  worth 
all  the  literature  ever  yet  penned  for  showing 
freemen  how  to  fight  the  fallacies  and  “combina¬ 
tions”  of  able  men  intent  only  upon  fleeting  per¬ 
sonal  glory  or  self -enrichment. 

And  it  is  in  these  brief  records,  penned  for  the 
future,  that  Jefferson  turns  a  search-light  upon 
the  germs  of  corruption  which  have  poisoned  our 
political  life.  It  is  here  that  we  have  a  calm,  pene¬ 
trating,  and  complete  explanation  of  the  methods, 
motives,  and  vital  principles  which  divided  parties 
at  the  birth  of  the  nation.  It  is  here  that  we  see 
why  and  how  Jefferson,  the  new-born  American 
statesman,  challenged,  met  and  easily  mastered 
Hamilton,  the  English  statesman.  And  it  is  to  the 
work  he  then  did,  and  the  victory  he  then  won, 
that  we  owe  the  firm  and  lasting  establishment  of 
American  institutions. 

“I  returned  from  the  mission  to  France  the  first  year  of  the 
new  government,  having  landed  in  Virginia  in  December,  1789, 
and  proceeded  to  New  York  in  March,  1790,  to  enter  on  the  office 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


167 


of  Secretary  of  State.  Here,  certainly,  I  found  a  state  of  things 
which,  of  all  I  had  ever  contemplated,  I  the  least  expected.  I 
had  left  France  in  the  first  year  of  her  revolution,  in  the  fervor 
of  natural  rights  and  zeal  for  reformation.  My  conscientious 
devotion  to  these  rights  could  not  be  heightened,  but  it  had  been 
aroused  and  excited  by  daily  exercise.  The  President  received 
me  cordially,  and  my  colleagues,  and  the  circle  of  principal  citi¬ 
zens,  apparently  with  welcome.  The  courtesies  of  dinner  parties 
given  me,  as  a  stranger  newly  arrived  among  them,  placed  me  at 
once  in  their  familiar  society.  But  I  cannot  describe  the  wonder 
and  mortification  with  which  the  table  conversations  filled  me. 
Politics  were  the  chief  topic,  and  a  preference  of  a  kingly  over  a 
republican  government,  was  evidently  the  favorite  sentiment.  An 
apostate  I  could  not  be,  nor  yet  a  hypocrite ;  and  I  found  myself, 
for  the  most  part,  the  only  advocate  on  the  republican  side  of  the 
question,  unless  some  guests  there  chanced  to  be  some  members 
of  that  party  from  the  legislative  houses.  ’  ’ 

“Hamilton’s  financial  system  had  two  objects:  1st,  as  a  puzzle, 
to  exclude  popular  understanding  and  inquiry;  2nd,  as  a  ma¬ 
chine  for  the  corruption  of  the  Legislature:  for  he  avowed 
the  opinion  that  man  could  be  governed  by  one  of  two  motives 
only,  force  or  interest.  Force,  he  observed,  in  this  country,  was 
out  of  the  question ;  and  the  interests,  therefore,  of  the  members 
must  be  laid  hold  of,  to  keep  the  Legislature  in  unison  with  the 
Executive.  And  with  grief  and  shame  it  must  be  acknowledged 
that  his  machine  was  not  without  effect;  that  even  in  this,  the 
birth  of  our  government,  some  members  were  found  sordid 
enough  to  bend  their  duty  to  their  interests,  and  to  look  after 
personal  rather  than  public  good.  ’  ’ 

“It  is  well  known  that  during  the  war,  the  greatest  difficulty 
we  encountered,  was  the  want  of  money  or  means  to  pay  our 
soldiers  who  fought,  or  our  farmers,  manufacturers,  and  mer¬ 
chants.  who  furnished  the  necessary  supplies  of  food  and  clothing 
for  them.  After  the  expedient  of  paper  money  had  exhausted 
itself,  certificates  of  debt  were  given  to  the  individual  creditors, 
with  assurance  of  payment,  so  soon  as  the  United  States  should 
be  able.  But  the  distresses  of  these  people  often  obliged  them 
to  part  with  these  for  the  half,  the  fifth,  and  even  a  tenth  of 
their  value;  and  speculators  had  made  a  trade  of  cozening  them 
from  the  holders,  by  the  most  fraudulent  practices,  and  persua- 


168 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


sions  that  they  would  never  be  paid.  In  the  bill  for  funding  and 
paying  these,  Hamilton  made  no  difference  between  the  original 
holders  and  the  fraudulent  purchasers  of  this  paper.  Great  and 
just  repugnance  arose  at  putting  these  two  classes  of  creditors 
on  the  same  footing,  and  great  exertions  were  used  to  pay  the 
former  the  full  value,  and  to  the  latter  the  price  only  which  they 
had  paid,  with  interest.  But  this  would  have  prevented  the  game 
which  was  to  be  played,  and  for  which  the  minds  of  greedy  mem¬ 
bers  were  already  tutored  and  prepared.  When  the  trial  of 
strength,  on  these  several  efforts,  had  indicated  the  form  in 
which  the  bill  would  finally  pass,  this  being  known  ivithin  doors 
sooner  than  without,  and  especially,  than  to  those  who  were  in 
distant  parts  of  the  Union,  the  base  scramble  began.  Couriers 
and  relay  horses  by  land,  and  swift-sailing  pilot  boats  by  sea, 
were  flying  in  all  directions.  Active  partners  and  agents  were 
associated  and  employed  in  every  State,  town,  and  country  neigh¬ 
borhood,  and  this  paper  was  bought  up  at  five  shillings,  and  even 
as  low  as  two  shillings  in  the  pound,  before  the  holder  knew  that 
Congress  had  already  provided  for  its  redemption  at  par.  Im¬ 
mense  sums  were  thus  filched  from  the  poor  and  ignorant,  and 
fortunes  accumulated  by  those  who  had  themselves  been  poor 
enough  before.  Men  thus  enriched  by  the  dexterity  of  a  leader, 
would  follow  of  course,  the  chief  who  was  leading  them  to  for¬ 
tune,  and  become  the  zealous  instruments  of  all  his  enterprises. 1  1 

* 4  Still  the  machine  was  not  complete.  The  effect  of  the  Fund- 
system,  and  of  the  Assumption,  would  be  temporary;  it 
would  be  lost  with  the  loss  of  the  individual  members  whom  it 
nas  enriched;  and  some  engine  of  influence  more  permanent  must 
be  contrived,  while  these  myrmidons  were  yet  in  place  to  carry  it 
through  all  opposition.  This  engine  was  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States.  All  that  history  is  known,  so  I  shall  say  nothing  about 
it.  While  the  government  remained  at  Philadelphia,  a  selection 
of  members  of  both  Houses  were  constantly  kept  as  directors, 
who,  on  every  question  interesting  to  that  institution,  or  to  the 
views  of  the  Federal  head,  voted  at  the  will  of  that  head;  and, 
together  with  the  stockholding  members,  could  always  make  the 
Federal  vote  that  of  the  majority.  By  this  combination,  legis¬ 
lative  expositions  were  shaped  on  the  model  of  England,  and  so 
passed.  And  from  this  influence  we  were  not  relieved,  until  the 
removal  from  the  precincts  of  the  Bank,  (at  Philadelphia)  to 
Washington. 1 1 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


169 


“Here,  then,  was  the  real  ground  of  the  opposition  which  was 
made  to  the  course  of  administration.  Its  object  was  to  preserve 
the  legislature  pure  and  independent  of  the  executive,  to  restrain 
the  administration  to  republican  forms  and  principles,  and  not 
permit  the  Constitution  to  be  construed  into  a  monarchy,  and  to 
be  warped,  in  practice,  into  all  the  principles  and  pollutions  of 
their  favorite  English  model.  Nor  was  this  in  opposition  to 
General  Washington.  He  was  true  to  the  republican  charge  con¬ 
fided  to  him;  and  has  solemnly  and  repeatedly  protested  to  me, 
m  our  conversations,  that  he  would  lose  the  last  drop  of  his  blood 
in  support  of  it;  and  he  did  this  the  oftener  and  with  the  more 
earnestness,  because  he  knew  my  suspicions  of  Hamilton’s  de¬ 
signs  against  it,  and  wished  to  quiet  them.  For  he  was  not  aware 
of  the  drift,  or  of  the  effect  of  Hamilton ’s  schemes.  Unversed 
in  financial  projects  and  calculations  and  budgets,  his  approba¬ 
tion  of  them  Tvas  bottomed  on  his  confidence  in  the  man.  ’  ’ 

‘  ‘  But  Hamilton  was  not  only  a  monarchist,  but  for  a  monarchy 
bottomed  on  corruption.  In  proof  of  this,  I  will  relate  an  anec¬ 
dote,  for  the  truth  of  which  I  attest  the  God  who  made  me.  Some 
occasion  for  consultation  arising,  I  invited  those  gentlemen 
(members  of  the  Cabinet  and  Vice  President  Adams)  to  dine 
■with  me.  After  the  cloth  was  removed,  and  our  question  agreed 
and  dismissed,  conversation  began  on  other  matters,  and,  by 
some  circumstance,  was  led  to  the  British  Constitution,  on  which 
Mr.  Adams  observed :  ‘  Purge  that  Constitution  of  its  corruption, 
and  give  to  it3  popular  branch  equality  of  representation,  and  it 
would  be  the  most  perfect  Constitution  ever  devised  by  the  wit 
of  man.'  Hamilton  paused  and  said :  ‘ Purge  it  of  its  corruption, 
and  give  to  its  popular  branch  equality  of  representation,  and  it 
would  become  an  impracticable  government ;  as  it  stands  at  pres¬ 
ent,  with  all  its  supposed  defects,  it  is  the  most  perfect  govern¬ 
ment  which  ever  existed.’  And  this  was  assuredly  the  exact  line 
which  separated  the  political  creeds  of  these  two  gentlemen. 
The  one  was  for  two  hereditary  branches  and  an  honest  elective 
one:  the  other,  for  an  hereditary  King,  with  a  House  of  Lords 
and  Commons  corrupted  to  his  will,  and  standing  between  him 
and  the  people.” 

“Hamilton  was,  indeed,  a  singular  character.  Of  acute  under¬ 
standing,  disinterested,  honest,  and  honorable  in  all  private  trans¬ 
actions,  amiable  in  society,  and  duly  valuing  virtue  in  private  life, 


170 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


yet  so  bewitched  and  perverted  by  the  British  example,  as  to  be 
under  thorough  conviction  that  corruption  was  essential  to  the 
government  of  a  nation.” 

It  will  be  observed  that  Jefferson  said  things— 
as  throughout  his  whole  life  we  shall  now  see  he 
did  things ! 

As  a  natural  consequence,  we  have  only  to  turn 
back  to  the  political  history  of  that  critical  period 
to  find  him  pictured  by  the  Federal  leaders  as  a 
demagogue,  an  enthusiast,  an  atheist,  a  secession¬ 
ist,  and  a  French  Jacobin— just  returned  from  the 
scenes  of  the  Reign  of  Terror  in  France,  and  now 
deliberately  sowing  the  seeds  of  mad  riot  and  dis¬ 
order  which,  if  they  took  hold,  would  plunge  the 
American  people  into  a  similar  orgy  of  bloodshed 
and  ruin. 

Josiah  Quincy,  “the  strongest  representative  in 
Congress  from  Massachusetts,  ’  ’  declared  that 
“Jefferson  was  a  transparent  fraud,  his  followers 
were  dupes  or  ruffians,  and  the  nation  was  hasten¬ 
ing  to  a  fatal  erisis.,,  Quincy  refused  to  accept 
the  usual  invitation  to  dine  at  the  White  House, 
explaining:  “I  regarded  him  (Jefferson)  as  a 
snake  in  the  grass;  the  more  dangerous  for  the 
oily,  wily  language  with  which  he  lubricated  his 
victims  and  applied  his  venom.  ’  ’ 

In  the  studied  and  carefully  written  papers  by 
Hamilton  for  the  Philadelphia  Gazette ,  over  the 
signature  “Catullus,”  Jefferson  was  thus  de¬ 
scribed  : 

“Mr.  Jefferson  has  hitherto  been  distinguished  as  the  quiet, 
modest,  retiring  philosopher;  as  the  plain,  simple,  unambitious 
Republican.  He  shall  not  now,  for  the  first  time,  be  regarded  as 
the  intriguing  incendiary,  the  aspiring  turbulent  competitor. 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


171 


“How  long  it  is  since  that  gentleman’s  real  character  may 
have  been  divined,  or  whether  this  is  only  the  first  time  that  the 
secret  has  been  disclosed,  I  am  not  sufficiently  acquainted  with 
the  history  of  his  political  life  to  determine;  but  there  is  always 
a  ‘first  time’  when  characters  studious  of  artful  disguises  are 
unveiled;  when  the  visor  of  stoicism  is  plucked  from  the  brow  of 
the  epicurean;  when  the  plain  garb  of  quaker  simplicity  is 
stripped  from  the  concealed  voluptuary;  when  Caesar,  coyly  refus¬ 
ing  the  proffered  diadem,  is  seen  to  be  Caesar  rejecting  the  trap¬ 
pings,  but  tenaciously  grasping  the  substance  of  imperial  domina¬ 
tion.  ’  ’ 

To  this  late  day,  if  we  consult  the  libraries  of 
current  literature  which  shape  political  convic¬ 
tions  in  all  the  strongholds  of  Protection— not¬ 
ably  throughout  New  England  and  Pennsylvania 
— we  find  Jefferson  everywhere  portrayed  as  a 
theorist,  who  was  ineffective  and  unsafe  in  practi¬ 
cal  statesmanship;  but  who  had  a  gift  of  genius 
for  phrasing  “glittering  generalities”  about 
equality  and  rights  of  man,  which  appealed  irre¬ 
sistibly  to  the  populace,  and  thus  made  him  the 
most  successful  politician  of  his  time. 

I  can  not,  indeed,  more  clearly  indicate  what  the 
rich  and  “the  well-born’ ’  were  thinking  and  say¬ 
ing  a  century  ago,  than  by  quoting  a  sample  of 
what  millionaire  Prosperity  Prophets  are  think¬ 
ing  and  saying  in  our  time.  The  following  amaz¬ 
ing  estimate  of  Jefferson’s  opponent,  is  from 
none  other  than  Senator  Chauncey  M.  Depew — 
Demosthenes  to  the  millionaires: 

‘ 1  In  no  age  or  country  has  there  appeared  a  more  precocious  or 
amazing  intelligence  than  Hamilton’s.  At  thirteen  he  was  the 
responsible  head  of  a  great  commercial  establishment  *  *  * 

at  eighteen,  he  was  hailed  by  the  whole  country  as  the  peer  of  the 
Adamses  and  Jay. 

“He  smote  the  sources  of  revenue  with  such  skill  and  power, 


172 


JEFFERSON  IAN  DEMOCRACY. 


that  from  the  barren,  rocks  flowed  the  streams  which  filled  the 
Treasury  and  the  Sinking  Fund,  and  the  exhausted  land  was  fer¬ 
tilized  by  its  own  productiveness.  Out  of  chaos  he  developed 
perfected  schemes  which  have  stood  every  strain  and  met  every 
emergency  in  our  national  life.  From  his  tent  at  Morristown  he 
suggested  to  the  bewildered  Morris,  who  was  seeking  funds  to 
sustain  the  Eevolution,  a  plan  of  a  National  Banking  system 
which  he  completed  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  which,  af¬ 
ter  many  vicissitudes  and  with  some  modifications,  has  met  the 
exigencies  created  by  civil  war,  and  is  the  basis  upon  which  rests 
our  whole  structure  of  public  and  private  business.  (Shade  of 
Salmon  P.  Chase!)  He  saw  the  necessity  for  manufactures,  and 
the  possibility  of  their  creation  and  growth  by  judicious  Protec¬ 
tion,  and  laid  down  the  principles  which  succeeding  statesmen 
and  publicists  have  accepted,  but  never  enlarged.  (Shades  of 
McKinley  and  Dingley!)  When  the  orgies  of  the  French  Eevolu¬ 
tion  maddened  Europe  and  intoxicated  America,  and  in  the  name 
of  universal  Eepublicanism  France  demanded  an  offensive  and 
defensive  alliance,  he  stemmed  the  popular  current,  prophesied 
that  license  would  end  in  despotism,  and  established  the  great 
rule  of  neutrality  which  has  been  the  guiding  and  protecting 
spirit  of  our  foreign  policy.  (Shade  of  Washington!) 

So  great  was  the  concentration  of  this  industry  and  the  com¬ 
prehensiveness  of  his  mind,  that  in  three  months  he  mastered  the 
law,  and  entered  at  once  upon  a  lucrative  practice.  Amidst  the 
universal  prosperity  created  by  his  wisdom  and  measures,  private 
needs  compelled  his  resignation,  and  he  entered  upon  the  brief, 
but  most  brilliant  professional  career  in  the  illustrious  history  of 
the  bar  of  our  State.  Enraptured  juries  were  swayed  by  his 
eloquence,  and  admiring  judges  convinced  by  his  arguments.  He 
so  settled  the  law  of  libel  and  the  liberty  of  the  press,  that  his 
brief  became  part  of  the  constitutions  of  States  and  the  statutes 
of  England.  (Shade  of  Edward  Hamilton! ) 

“Talleyrand,  walking  up  Garden  Street  in  this  city  late  at 
night,  and  seeing  him  at  work  in  his  office,  said:  ‘I  have  seen 
one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world.  I  have  seen  a  man  laboring  all 
night  to  support  his  family,  who  has  made  the  fortune  of  a  na¬ 
tion.  •’  This  great  critic  and  cynic  said:  ‘I  consider  Napoleon, 
Fox,  and  Hamilton  the  three  greatest  men  of  our  epoch,  and 
without  hesitation  I  award  the  first  place  to  Hamilton.  ’  ’  ’ 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


173 


‘ 1  If  Shakespeare  is  the  commanding  originating  genius  of  Eng¬ 
land,  and  Goethe  of  Germany,  Hamilton  must  occupy  that  place 
among  Americans.  ’ 7 

It  was  literature,  logic,  and  oratory  precisely 
like  this,  which  between  1796  and  1800  led  the 
Federal  party  into  the  most  extreme  and  danger¬ 
ous  measures  of  governmental  policy— all-but  in¬ 
volving  us  in  a  war  witn  France  in  the  hidden 
hope  that  an  alliance  with  Great  Britain  might  be 
formed.  It  was  reasoning  like  Depew’s  which  for 
a  time  upset  and  ran  away  with  the  irritable  and 
unsafe  judgment  of  President  John  Adams; 
which  secured  the  enactment  of  the  infamous 
Alien  and  Sedition  laws;  and  which  finally  cul¬ 
minated  in  the  secession  Convention,  at  Hartford, 
Connecticut,  in  1815. 

But  Jefferson  never  once  lost  his  head— never 
faltered  in  his  firm  faith  in  the  American  people. 
And  he  never  ceased  in  the  grand  work  to  which 
he  was  called  until  he  had  laid,  broad  and  deep, 
the  foundations  of  a  national  existence  which 
could  withstand  every  tempest  and  storm— until 
he  had  perfected  institutions  which  we  now  begin 
to  see  are  surely  destined  to  work  an  evolution 
and  readjustment  in  the  governmental  systems  of 
every  people  under  the  sun. 

Even  Hamilton  himself  lived  to  recognize  and 
acknowledge  the  sure  evidences  of  his  great  mis¬ 
take.  For  after  the  Federal  party  had  been  driv¬ 
en  from  power;  and  after  he  found  himself  es¬ 
tranged  from  nearly  all  its  leaders,  because  of  his 
pro-British  sympathies ;  he  frankly  wrote  his  old 


174 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


friend  Gouverneur  Morris,  under  date  of  Febru¬ 
ary  2, 1802,  in  this  exact  language:* 

‘‘Mine  is  an  odd  destiny.  Perhaps  no  man  in  the  United 
States  has  sacrificed  or  done  more  for  the  present  Constitution 
than  myself ;  and  contrary  to  all  my  anticipations  of  its  fate,  as 
you  know  from  the  very  beginning.  I  am  still  laboring  to  prop 
the  frail  and  worthless  fabric.  Yet  I  have  the  murmurs  of  its 
friends,  no  less  than  the  curses  of  its  foes,  for  my  reward.  What 
can  I  do  better  than  withdraw  from  the  scene?  Every  day  proves 
to  me  more  and  more,  that  this  American  world  was  not  made 
for  me. 

‘  ‘  You,  friend  Morris,  are  by  birth  a  native  of  this  country, 
but  by  genius  an  exotic.  You  mistake,  if  you  fancy  that  you  are 
more  of  a  favorite  than  myself,  or  that  you  are  in  any  sort  upon 
a  theatre  suited  to  you. 

Four  months  after  Morris  had  delivered  the 
funeral  oration  over  Hamilton’s  corpse,  under 
date  of  December  28,  1804,  Morris  wrote  this : 

“Our  poor  friend  Hamilton  bestrode  his  hobby  to  the  great 
annoyance  of  his  friends,  and  not  without  injury  to  himself. 
More  a  theoretic  than  a  practical  man,  he  was  not  sufficiently 
convinced  that  a  system  may  be  good  in  itself,  and  bad  in  rela¬ 
tion  to  particular  circumstances.  He  well  knew  that  his  favorite 
form  was  inadmissible,  unless  as  the  result  of  civil  war;  and  I 
suspect  that  his  belief  in  that  which  he  called  an  approaching 
crisis  arose  from  a  conviction  that  the  kind  of  government  most 
suitable,  in  his  opinion,  to  this  extensive  country,  could  be  estab¬ 
lished  in  no  other  way.  When  our  population  shall  have  reached 
a  certain  extent,  his  system  may  be  proper,  and  the  people  may 
then  be  disposed  to  adopt  it;  but  under  present  circumstances 
they  will  not,  neither  will  it  answrer  any  valuable  purpose. 1  ’ 

And  the  meaning  of  all  this  is  simply,  what  his¬ 
torians  have  often  remarked,  and  what  all  think- 


•Hamilton’s  Works,  by  John  C.  Hamilton,  Vol.  VI,  page  530. 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


175 


ing  men  can  now  plainly  see— “that  Hamilton 
lived  in  the  European  past,  while  Jefferson  lived 
in  the  American  future ! ’  ’ 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Hamilton  was  born  in  the 
West  Indies,  and  he  did  not  come  to  New  York 
until  his  character  had  been  formed  and  his  loyal 
British  principles  firmly  fixed.  Knowing  nothing 
of  our  great  West  and  South,  except  through 
hearsay,  Hamilton  could  not  comprehend  the 
spirit  and  genius  of  the  great  race  of  fighting  free¬ 
men  who  had  already  conquered  and  settled  the 
territory  East  of  the  Blue  Ridge  and  the  Alle- 
ghanies — and  who  were  even  then  laying  the  foun¬ 
dations  of  Empire  in  the  West.  Hamilton  was, 
therefore,  an  Englishman  first,  and  an  Eastern 
man  next.  In  his  philosophy  the  Marquises,  the 
Lords,  the  Sir  Knights,  and  statesmen  drawn 
from  the  ranks  of  “the  well-born,”  were  the  only 
men  competent  or  fit  to  rule — there  was  no  proper 
place  in  a  scheme  of  official  organization  for  In¬ 
dian  fighters  and  backwoodsmen,  of  whom  An¬ 
drew  Jackson  and  iibraham  Lincoln  were  perfect 
types. 

More  than  this,  Hamilton  knew  the  history  of 
the  little  democracies  which  overwhelmed  Greek 
civilization  through  disunion  and  civil  strife ;  he 
was  a  living  witness  to  the  inefficiency  of  our  first 
attempt  at  national  government  under  the  Arti¬ 
cles  of  Confederation  and  the  Continental  Con¬ 
gress;  he  described  it  as  “the  present  futile  and 
senseless  confederation ; ’  9  and  finally,  he  saw  the 
French  nation  convulsed  by  the  mad  excesses  of 
democracy  which  culminated  in  the  Reign  of  Ter¬ 
ror,  and  made  the  French  people  victims  of  the 


176 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


selfish  ambition  of  Napoleon.  Thus  it  was  that 
experience  here,  and  experience  in  France,  served 
only  to  confirm  and  fix  the  convictions  which  he 
was  born  to  and  brought  with  him— and  which  he 
frankly  expressed  in  the  following  words,  from 
one  of  his  earliest  pamphlets,  “The  Farmer  Be- 
futed,”  published  in  1775: 

“I  earnestly  lament  the  unnatural  quarrel  between  the  parent 
state  and  the  colonies,  and  most  ardently  wish  for  a  speedy  recon¬ 
ciliation — a  perpetual  and  mutually  beneficial  union.  I  am  a 
warm  advocate  for  limited  monarchy,  and  an  unfeigned  well- 
wisher  to  the  present  royal  family.  *  *  *  *  That  harmony 

and  mutual  confidence  may  be  speedily  restored  to  all  parts  of 
the  British  empire,  is  the  favorite  wish  of  one  who  feels  the 
warmest  sentiments  of  good  will  to  all  mankind,  *  *  *  and 

who  is — A  sincere  Friend  to  America. 1 1 

Hamilton  never  for  one  moment  departed  from 
these  inmost  convictions,  as  overwhelming  evi¬ 
dence  gives  proof.  And  every  word  that  he  ut¬ 
tered,  every  line  that  he  wrote,  and  every  act  of 
his  public  career  among  us,  was  inspired  by  the 
hope  and  belief  that  the  Constitution  might  serve 
as  a  stepping  stone  to  that  ideal  and  inevitable 
form  of  government — which  he  saw  only  in  Brit¬ 
ain.  For  in  the  last  letter  that  he  penned  before 
his  death,  he  designated  “our  real  disease,  which 
is  democracy.’ ’ 

Beyond  all  this,  the  last  limit  of  Hamilton’s 
imagination  was  bounded  by  the  wonderful  work 
that  Julius  Caesar  achieved.  He  believed,  and 
avowed,  that  Caesar  was  the  greatest  man  who  had 
ever  lived.  In  that  judgment  he  was  absolutely 
right— so  far  as  kingly  rule  can  serve  or  curse 
mankind.  He  watched  Napoleon  at  work;  and 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


177 


plainly  saw  in  Napoleon  a  modern  Italian  of  the 
olden  type,  transplanted  to  France,  and  then  reck¬ 
lessly  driving  toward  the  goal  of  a  world  empire 
—for  which  Caesar’s  work  was  the  one  plan  and 
model.  These  honest  convictions  burned  in  Ham¬ 
ilton’s  brain  and  inspired  all  his  work.  For  a 
brief  time  he  was  powerful  in  leadership,  because 
the  Federal  party  seemed  to  be  following  him; 
because  he  appealed  irresistibly  to  the  pocket  in¬ 
terest  of  the  Tories,  the  aristocrats,  and  “the 
well-born;”  because  he  dexterously  played  upon 
the  conservatism  and  timidity  of  men  of  wealth; 
and  because  he  banked  upon  the  energy,  the  abil¬ 
ity,  and  the  unscrupulous  aid  of  men  sordidly  in¬ 
tent  upon  enriching  themselves  through  legisla¬ 
tive  favors. 

His  grand  mistake  consisted  in  the  fact  that  he 
had  no  faith  in  the  people ;  no  faith  in  a  govern¬ 
ment  by  the  people.  Thus,  in  proposing  his  last 
plan  of  action  for  the  Federal  party — the  silly 
and  visionary  scheme  for  “The  Christian  Consti¬ 
tutional  Society,”  to  combat  the  Democratic  So¬ 
cieties  of  that  day— he  wrote  this  :* 

11  Nothing  is  more  fallacious  than  to  expect  to  produce  any 
valuable  or  permanent  results  in  political  projects  by  relying 
merely  on  the  reason  of  men.  Men  are  rather  reasoning  than 
reasonable  animals,  for  the  most  part  governed  by  the  impulse 
of  passion.  This  is  a  truth  well  understood  by  our  adversaries. 
*  *  *  Unluckily,  however,  for  us,  in  the  competition  for  the 

passions  of  the  people,  our  opponents  have  great  advantage  over 
us;  for  the  plain  reason  that  the  vicious  are  far  more  active  than 
the  good  passions. 77 

♦To  those  who  are  still  deluded  with  the  idea  of  Hamilton’s  “great¬ 
ness  ”  I  commend  a  reading  of  this  school-boy  plan  of  party  organiza¬ 
tion.  See  page  10,  Vol.  Ill,  Randall’s  Life  of  Jefferson. 


178 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


Hamilton  failed,  as  other  men  like  him  have  al¬ 
ways  failed,  because  he  was  blind  to  the  prompt¬ 
ings  of  man’s  higher  nature— because  he  was  blind 
to  the  obvious  fact  that  “men  are  disposed  to  live 
honestly  if  the  means  of  doing  so  are  open  to 
them.  ’  ’  His  fiscal  system,  centering  in  a  bank  of 
the  United  States  (a  mere  duplicate  of  the  Bank 
of  England)  had  to  be  abandoned  because  it  was 
unsuited  and  dangerous  to  a  self-governing  peo¬ 
ple.  And  now,  at  last,  the  people  plainly  see  that 
his  system  of  Protection  (a  legacy  and  curse  of 
British  rule,)  must  be  abandoned— because  it  is 
the  most  corrupting  and  most  dangerous  fallacy 
at  work  in  our  public  life.  In  naked  truth, 
Hamilton  was  visionary,  impetuous,  and  impossi¬ 
ble  as  a  leader  of  men.  He  owed  everything  to 
.  Washington’s  friendship,  Washington’s  great 
name,  and  Washington’s  supreme  influence  over 
the  American  people.  And  it  is  to  Washington’s 
genius  for  command,  and  especially  Washington’s 
restraint  of  Hamilton,  and  moderation  of  all  his 
measures,  that  we  owe  every  useful  thing  accom¬ 
plished  in  putting  our  early  finances  in  order. 
Conclusive  proof  of  all  this  lies  in  the  fact  that 
Hamilton  lor  t  influence  in  national  affairs,  and 
forfeited  the  following  of  practically  every  leader 
of  the  Federal  party,  very  soon  after  he  retired 
from  Washington’s  Cabinet.  Burr’s  murderous 
bullet  simply  made  a  martyred  hero  for  the  mo¬ 
neyed  aristocracy;  and  the  inspiration  of  pocket 
interest  has  enabled  millionaire  oratory  to  per¬ 
petuate  the  myth  of  Hamilton’s  greatness. 

On  the  other  hand,  Thomas  Jefferson  was  a  na¬ 
tive  American— born  in  the  then  far  West  and 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


179 


South.  Through  generations  of  native-born  fore¬ 
fathers,  American  ideals,  American  patriotism 
and  American  courage  were  bred  into  the  very 
marrow  of  his  bones.  He  lived  and  moved  and 
had  his  being  as  a  part  of  us.  He  saw,  with  the 
clear  eye  of  the  prophet,  that  the  fighting  freemen 
of  every  Colony  on  our  coast  were  ready  to  lay 
down  their  lives— had  indeed  freely  given  their 
lives  and  their  fortunes— rather  than  submit  to 
the  tyranny  of  a  class  who  accounted  themselves 
“the  well-born.’ ’  He  read  all  that  Hamilton  had 
read;  and  traveling  much  further,  read  vastly 
more.  As  our  Minister  to  France,  he  lived  for 
years  among  the  French  people ;  and,  on  the  very 
spot,  he  studied  the  forces  which  culminated  in 
the  Reign  of  Terror.  In  the  light  of  that  long  resi¬ 
dence,  he  viewed  with  wide-open  eyes  all  that  Bon¬ 
aparte  thought,  and  planned,  and  did.  In  Napo¬ 
leon’s  work  he  could  see  “nothing  which  bespeaks 
a  luminous  view  of  the  organization  of  rational 
government.  ’  ’  But  he  watched  and  waited  to  see 
“if  his  head  is  equal  to  true  and  solid  calculations 
of  glory.”  When  the  reality  came— then  Jeffer¬ 
son  penned  the  death-dealing  judgment  of  history 
by  declaring : 

“No  man  on  earth  has  stronger  detestation  of  the  unprincipled 
tyrant  Bonaparte  than  myself.  ’  ’ 

1 1  What  suffering  can  atone  for  his  crimes  against  the  liberties 
ana  happiness  of  the  human  race;  for  the  miseries  he  has  already 
inflicted  on  his  own  generation,  and  on  those  yet  to  come,  on 
whom  he  has  riveted  the  chains  of  despotism.  ’  ’ 

Knowing  France  as  he  knew  America,  Jeffer¬ 
son  also  lived  in  England  long  enough  to  see 
clearly  that  the  ruling  aristocracy,  with  studied 


180 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


intent  of  purpose  to  defeat  at  home  the  spread  of 
republican  ideas,  had  instilled  enmity  and  hatred 
into  the  hearts  of  a  people  who  are  kindred  to  us, 
and  who  should  be  friends.  Then  he  came  home  to 
see  Hamilton  leading  the  Federal  party  headlong 
toward  the  horrors  of  civil  strife  and  foreign 
wars — with  the  sole  aim  of  establishing  aristo¬ 
cratic  rule.  Straightway,  with  a  genius  for  com¬ 
mand  which  has  never  been  approached  in  all  the 
history  of  conservative  and  constructive  leader¬ 
ship,  Jefferson  set  himself  squarely  to  the  task  of 
penning  the  literature,  inspiring  the  leaders,  and 
marshalling  the  forces  for  the  grandest  work  in 
party  organization  and  constructive  statesman¬ 
ship  in  all  the  written  records  of  historic  time ! 

Through  all  his  teaching,  as  through  all  his 
statutes  and  his  statesmanship,  there  rang  the 
high,  clear  note  of  a  direct  appeal  to  man’s  honor, 
to  man’s  patriotism,  and  lo  man’s  courage.  Wit¬ 
ness  here : 

‘  1  Honesty  is  the  first  chapter  of  the  book  of  wisdom.  ’ ’ 

“I  have  never  believed  there  was  one  code  of  morality  for  a 
public  and  another  for  a  private  man.” 

“To  inform  the  minds  of  the  people  and  to  follow  their  will 
is  the  chief  duty  of  those  placed  at  their  head. ’  ’ 

‘ 4  The  information  of  the  people  at  large  can  alone  make  them 
the  safe,  as  they  are  the  sole  depository  of  our  religious  and  po¬ 
litical  freedom.  ’  ’ 

“There  is  a  debt  of  service  due  from  every  man  to  his  country, 
proportioned  to  the  bounties  which  nature  and  fortune  have  meas¬ 
ured  to  him.  ’ 1 

‘  ‘  It  is  impossible  not  to  be  sensible  that  we  are  acting  for  all 
mankind;  that  circumstances  denied  to  others,  but  indulged  to 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


181 


us,  have  imposed  on  us  the  duty  of  proving  what  is  the  degree  of 
freedom  and  self-government  in  which  a  society  may  venture  to 
have  its  individual  members. ’ 1 

*  ‘  The  station  which  we  occupy  among  the  nations  of  the  earth 
is  honorable,  but  awful.  Trusted  with  the  destinies  of  this  soli¬ 
tary  republic  of  the  world,  the  only  monument  of  human  rights 
and  the  sole  depository  of  the  sacred  fire  of  freedom  and  self- 
government,  from  hence  it  is  to  be  lighted  up  in  other  regions 
of  the  earth,  if  other  regions  of  the  earth  ever  become  susceptible 
of  its  benign  influence.  All  mankind  ought  then,  with  us,  to  re¬ 
joice  in  its  prosperous,  and  sympathize  in  its  adverse  fortunes, 
as  involving  everything  that  is  dear  to  man.  And  to  what  sacri¬ 
fices  of  interest  or  commerce  ought  not  these  considerations  to 
animate  us?  To  what  compromises  of  opinion  and  inclination,  to 
maintain  harmony  and  union  among  ourselves,  and  to  preserve 
from  all  danger  this  hallowed  ark  of  human  hope  and  human  hap¬ 
piness.  That  differences  of  opinion  should  arise  among  men,  on 
politics,  on  religion,  and  on  every  other  topic  of  human  inquiry, 
and  that  these  should  be  freely  expressed  in  a  country  where  all 
our  faculties  are  free,  is  to  be  expected.  ’ 7 

And  when  he  went  to  the  Presidency,  this  is  a 
small  part  of  the  message  which  he  gave  to  his 
own  people  in  that  immortal  document,  that  price¬ 
less  legacy  to  all  mankind,  his  first  Inaugural  Ad¬ 
dress  : 

“I  know,  indeed,  that  some  honest  men  fear  that  a  Republi¬ 
can  Government  cannot  be  strong;  that  this  Government  is  not 
strong  enough.  But  would  the  honest  patriot,  in  the  full  tide  of 
successful  experiment,  abandon  a  government  which  has  so  far 
kept  us  free  and  firm,  on  the  theoretic  and  visionary  fear  that 
this  Government,  the  world’s  best  hope,  may  by  possibility  want 
energy  to  preserve  itself?  I  trust  not.  I  believe  this,  on  the  con¬ 
trary,  the  strongest  Government  on  earth.  I  believe  it  the  only 
one  where  every  man,  at  the  call  of  the  laws,  would  fly  to  the 
standard  of  the  law,  and  would  meet  invasions  of  the  public 
order,  as  his  own  personal  concern. 

‘‘Let  us,  then,  with  courage  and  confidence,  pursue  our  own 


182 


JEFFEKSONJAN  DEMOCBACY. 


Federal  and  Republican  principles,  our  attachment  to  our  Union 
and  representative  government.  Kindly  separated  by  nature 
and  a  wide  ocean  from  the  exterminating  havoc  of  one  quarter  of 
the  globe;  too  high-minded  to  endure  the  degradations  of  the 
others;  possessing  a  chosen  country,  with  room  enough  for  our 
descendants  to  the  hundredth  and  thousandth  generation;  enter¬ 
taining  a  due  sense  of  our  equal  rights  to  the  use  of  our  own  fac¬ 
ulties,  to  the  acquisitions  of  our  industry,  to  honor  and  confidence 
from  our  fellow-citizens,  resulting,  not  from  birth,  but  from  our 
actions  and  their  sense  of  them ;  enlightened  by  a  benign  religion, 
professed,  indeed,  and  practised  in  various  forms,  yet  all  of  them 
including  honesty,  truth,  temperance,  gratitude,  and  the  love  of 
man;  acknowledging  and  adoring  an  overruling  Providence,  which 
by  all  its  dispensations  proves  that  it  delights  in  the  happiness  of 
man  here  and  his  greater  happiness  hereafter;  with  all  these 
blessings,  what  more  is  necessary  to  make  us  a  happy  and  pros¬ 
perous  people?  Still  one  thing  more,  fellow-citizens— a  wise  and 
frugal  goverment,  which  shall  restrain  men  from  injuring  one 
another,  which  shall  leave  them  otherwise  free  to  regulate  their 
own  pursuits  of  industry  and  improvement,  and  shall  not  take 
from  the  mouth  of  labor  the  bread  it  has  earned.  This  is  the  sum 
of  good  government,  and  this  is  necessary  to  close  the  circle  of 
our  felicities. 1  ’ 

And  now,  Christians  all,  take  careful  note ! 

From  a  searching  study  and  a  clear  analysis  of 
the  Scriptures,  he  saw  plainly  that  Christ’s  teach¬ 
ing  was  the  very  life  of  the  moral  world— the 
broad  basis  of  all  enduring  systems  in  true  gov¬ 
ernmental  science.  Yet  pulpits  rang  with  denun¬ 
ciations  of  him,  and  political  partisans  sought  to 
defile  his  great  name  with  charges  of  atheism,  in¬ 
fidelity,  and  all  the  sins  of  the  decalogue.  To 
these  slanderous  attacks  he  never  deigned  one 
word  of  reply.  But  to  intimate  and  trusted 
friends  he  made  himself  perfectly  clear,  in  letters 
now  vivid  with  living  truth ;  and  of  each  letter  he 
carefully  preserved  a  full  and  fair  copy  for  the 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


183 


eyes  of  history.  Witness  these  speaking  extracts : 

‘ 1  As  to  the  calumny  of  Atheism,  I  am  so  broken  to  calumnies 
of  every  kind,  from  every  department  of  government,  Executive, 
Legislative,  and  Judiciary,  and  from  every  minion  of  theirs  hold¬ 
ing  office  or  seeking  it,  that  I  entirely  disregard  it.  *  *  *  * 

It  has  been  so  impossible  to  contradict  all  their  lies,  that  I  am 
determined  to  contradict  none;  for  while  I  should  be  engaged 
with  one,  they  would  publish  twenty  new  ones.  ’  ’ 

“Had  the  doctrines  of  Jesus  been  preached  always  as  pure  as 
they  came  from  his  lips,  the  whole  civilized  world  would  now 
have  been  Christian.  ’  ’ 

“To  the  corruptions  of  Christianity  I  am  indeed  opposed;  but 
not  to  the  genuine  precepts  of  Jesus  himself;  I  am  a  Christian 
in  the  only  sense  he  wished  any  one  to  be;  sincerely  attached  to 
His  doctrines  in  preference  to  all  others;  ascribing  to  Himself 
every  human  excellence;  and  believing  he  never  claimed  any 
other.  ’  ’ 

‘  ‘  The  greatest  of  all  reformers  of  the  depraved  religion  of  his 
own  country  was  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Abstracting  what  is  really 
his  from  the  rubbish  in  which  it  is  buried,  easily  distinguished  by 
its  lustre  from  the  dross  of  his  biographers,  and  as  separable 
from  that  as  the  diamond  from  the  dunghill,  we  have  the  out¬ 
lines  of  a  system  of  the  most  sublime  morality  which  has  fallen 
from  the  lips  of  man ;  outlines  which  it  is  lamentable  he  did  not 
fill  up.  Epictetus  and  Epicurus  give  laws  for  governing  our¬ 
selves,  Jesus  a  supplement  of  the  duties  and  charities  we  owe  to 
others.’  ’ 

Throughout  his  whole  life  he  lived,  and  taught, 
and  acted,  upon  the  principle  that : 

“Opinion  and  the  just  maintenance  of  it  shall  never  be  a 
crime  in  my  view,  nor  bring  injury  on  the  individual.  ’  ’ 

“I  have  ever  found  in  my  progress  through  life,  that  acting 
for  the  public  if  we  always  do  what  is  right,  the  approbation 
denied  in  the  beginning  will  surely  follow  in  the  end.  ’  ’ 

In  sober  truth,  what  all  teachers,  preachers,  and 
earnest  followers  of  the  light  which  is  redeeming 
the  world  now  most  need,  is  a  pilgrimage  to  Mon- 


184 


JEFFEBSONIAN  DEMOCEACY. 


\ 


ticello,  there  to  find  writ  over  his  tomb  the  ever- 
living  fact  that  he  gave  ns  religions  liberty  as  the 
very  cornerstone  of  political  liberty— that 
Thomas  Jefferson  was  the  man  who  made  it  possi¬ 
ble  for  eighty  millions  of  freemen  to  dare  the 
world  in  defense  of  the  Master’s  injunction: 

4  ‘  Know  the  Truth,  and  the  Truth  shall  make 
you  free.’7 

Small  wonder  that  the  foremost  historian  of  the 
American  people,  Dr.  John  Fiske,  should  grace 
his  noble  work  of  harmonizing  true  religion  with 
science,  by  paying  this  tribute  to  the  foremost 
statesman  of  all  time : 

“The  Episcopal  Church  was  then  established  by  law  in  Vir¬ 
ginia,  and  dissenters  were  taxed  to  support  it.  Besides,  there  were 
many  heavy  penalties  attached  to  nonconformity ;  a  man  convict¬ 
ed  of  heresy  might  be  deprived  of  the  custody  of  his  children. 
Jefferson’s  own  views  of  the  relations  between  government  and 
religion  are  expressed  in  the  following  remarkable  passage  from 
his  “Notes  on  Virginia.”  “Opinion,”  he  says,  “is  something 
with  which  the  government  has  no  business  to  meddle ;  it  is  quite 
beyond  its  legitimate  province.  *  *  *  *  Millions  of  inno¬ 

cent  men,  women,  and  children,  since  the  introduction  of 
Christianity,  have  been  burnt,  tortured,  fined,  imprisoned;  yet 
we  have  not  advanced  one  inch  toward  uniformity.  Let  us  reflect 
that  the  earth  is  inhabited  by  thousands  of  millions  of  people ; 
that  these  profess  probably  a  thousand  different  systems  of  re¬ 
ligion;  that  ours  is  but  one  of  that  thousand;  that  if  there  be 
but  one  right,  and  ours  that  one,  we  should  wish  to  see  the  nine 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  wandering  sects  gathered  into  the  fold 
of  truth.  But  against  such  a  majority  we  cannot  effect  this  by 
lorce.  Reason  and  persuasion  are  the  only  practicable  instru¬ 
ments.  To  make  way  for  these,  free  inquiry  must  be  indulged; 
and  how  can  we  wish  others  to  indulge  it,  while  we  refuse  it  our¬ 
selves?”  These  few  pithy  sentences  have  had  no  little  influence 
upon  American  history.  For  half  a  century  they  furnished  the 
arguments  for  the  liberal-minded  men  who  by  dint  of  persistent 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


185 


effort,  succeeded  in  finally  divorcing  Church  from  State  in  all 
parts  of  our  Union.  For  holding  such  views  Jefferson  was  re¬ 
garded  by  many  people  as  an  infidel ;  in  our  time  he  would  be 
more  likely  to  be  classed  as  a  liberal  Christian.  The  general 
sentiment  of  the  churches  has  made  remarkable  progress  toward 
his  position,  though  it  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  it  has  yet 
fully  reached  it.  In  most  matters,  Jefferson’s  face  was  set 
toward  the  future;  in  this  he  was  clearly  in  advance  of  his  age, 
and  it  was  a  notable  instance  of  his  power  over  men  that  after 
only  nine  years  of  strenuous  debate  his  views  should  have  become 
incorporated  in  the  legislation  of  Virginia.  ’  ’ 

“  Jefferson  died  on  the  4th  of  Juy,  1826,  at  Monticello,  just 
half  a  century  after  the  promulgation  of  that  Declaration  of  In¬ 
dependence  which  he  had  written,  and  John  Adams  had  most 
powerfully  defended  in  the  Continental  Congress.  In  the  bitter 
political  strife  between  1795  and  1800  Jefferson  and  Adams  had 
become  enemies ;  but  in  later  years  the  enmity  had  subsided  as  old 
party  strife  had  subsided.  Jefferson  had  carried  the  day!  He 
had  lived  long  enough  to  see  the  fruition  of  his  work,  to  see  the 
American  people  in  full  sympathy  with  him,  and  to  win  back  the 
esteem  of  the  great  statesman,  John  Adams,  from  whom  he  bad 
been  so  long  divided. 

“Could  there  have  been  a  nobler  triumph  for  this  strong  and 
sweet  nature? 

“On  the  4th  of  July,  1826,  at  one  o’clock  midday,  he  quietly 
passed  away,  serene  in  death  as  in  all  his  life.  Three  hours  before, 
on  that  same  day,  at  his  home  in  Massachusetts,  John  Adams 
died;  and  just  before  the  last  breath  left  him  the  memories  of 
the  grand  old  times  when  Massachusetts  and  Virginia  stood  to¬ 
gether  and  built  up  this  Union  flitted  across  his  mind,  and  he 
murmured,  ‘  Thomas  Jefferson  still  lives.  ’ 

Verily,  Jefferson  still  lives— and  he  will  live  so 
long  as  liberty  survives,  so  long  as  written  his¬ 
tory  is  preserved ! 

Thus  we  see  in  cold  print  the  inner  records  of 
the  Revolutionary  story.  And  fortunately  for  the 
cause  of  human  liberty,  fortunately  for  the  happy 
future  which  awaits  all  races  of  men  under  free 


186 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


institutions,  we  now  have,  fresh  from  the  press,  the 
dying  testimony  of  an  interpreter  of  American 
history  who  was  so  profoundly  wise— a  man 
whose  knowledge  is  so  all-embracing,  whose  writ¬ 
ing  is  so  convincing  and  whose  conclusions  are  so- 
far-reaching  and  significant— that  I  confidently 
believe  his  books  have  laid,  broad  and  deep,  the 
historic  foundations  for  a  peaceful  revolution  in 
political  systems  without  a  parallel  in  recorded 
time.  For  we  live  in  a  scientific  age— in  an  age  of 
fast-crowding  change  in  thought,  in  systems,  and 
in  higher  aims.  In  our  own  time,  we  have  seen  the 
great  group  of  evolutionary  scientists— Darwin, 
Spencer,  Huxley,  Tyndall,  Wallace,  and  their  fel¬ 
lows— work  a  revolution  in  scientific  philosophy, 
in  religious  thought,  and  in  moral  teaching.  Dr. 
John  Fiske,  of  Cambridge,  Mass.,  was  the  co¬ 
worker,  companion,  and  warm  personal  friend  of 
these  men,  and  he  contributed  largely  to  the  liter¬ 
ature  of  the  revolution  which  they  have  wrought. 
Then  turning  to  the  materials  of  American  his¬ 
tory,  Dr.  Fiske  has  applied  the  same  system  of 
inquiry  and  interpretation— has  written  the  his¬ 
tory  and  development  of  American  institutions 
from  the  view-point  of  an  evolutionary  scientist. 
It  is  this  fact  which  makes  him  easily  the  greatest 
of  our  historians— this  fact  which  makes  him  the 
founder  of  a  new  school  of  historical  writers. 
And  it  is  because  his  pages  are  entirely  free  from 
aggressive  partisanship;  because  his  judgment  of 
men  and  measures  is  expressed  in  benignant,  but 
always  clear  and  strong  language,  that  I  believe 
his  works  will  live  for  generations  as  text  books 
for  students  of  political  science. 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY.  187 

In  liberty ’s  great  cause  we  ever  need  historians 
and  philosophers  who  abstain  from  definite  pro¬ 
posals,  that  they  may  teach  by  gentleness  and  per¬ 
suasion — that  they  may  prepare  the  way  for  those 
of  us  who  mean  to  do  things,  or  die  trying.  In 
this  respect  it  seems  to  me  that  Dr.  Fiske  achieved 
a  superlatively  grand  work— a  work  which  will 
rank  him  far  and  high  above  all  other  scientific 
and  historical  writers,  specifically  because  all  his 
teaching  can  now  be  turned  quickly  into  statutes 
which  will  surely  make  for  social  welfare  and  hu¬ 
man  happiness.  He  did  not  live  to  complete  his 
great  plan— did  not  live  to  share  with  us  the  fast¬ 
coming  glory  of  a  complete  vindication  of  the 
principles  he  taught  with  unfaltering  faith,  the 
principles  he  never  failed  to  make  perfectly  clear. 
But  he  did  enough  to  win  a  deathless  fame;  did 
enough  to  insure  us  safety  in  the  present  and  fu¬ 
ture  ;  and  did  enough  to  make  it  easy  to  see  the 
light,  to  know  the  right,  and  to  follow  without 
thought  of  fear! 

Since  the  death  of  Dr.  Fiske,  less  than  two 
years  ago,  two  volumes  of  his  “Essays,  Political 
and  Literary  ’  ’  have  been  given  to  the  world ;  and 
from  these  imperishable  pages  I  take  the  speaking 
extracts  which  follow : 

“We  often  hear  people  say  that  the  experiment  of  universal 
suffrage  is  a  failure,  that  it  simply  results  in  the  sway  of  dema¬ 
gogues,  who  marshal  at  the  polls  their  hordes  of  bribed  or  petted 
followers.  This  is  no  doubt  very  bad.  It  is  a  serious  danger, 
against  which  we  must  provide.  But  do  these  objectors  ever 
stop  to  think  how  much  worse  it  would  be  if  the  demagogue,  in¬ 
stead  of  marshalling  his  creatures  at  the  polls,  were  able  to  stand 
up  and  inflame  their  passions  with  the  cry  that  in  this  country 
they  have  no  vote,  nor  share  in  making  the  laws,  that  they  are 


188 


JEFFEESONIAN  DEMOCEACY. 


kept  out  of  their  just  dues  by  an  upper  class  of  rich  men  who  can 
make  the  laws  ?  If  your  hod  carrier  were  sulking  for  the  want  of 
a  vote  he  would  be  ten  times  more  dangerous  than  any  so-called 
friend  of  labor  can  now  make  him.  As  it  is,  his  vote  does  not 
teach  him  much,  because  of  his  dull  mind  and  narrow  experience, 
but,  after  all,  it  gives  him  the  feeling  that  he  is  of  some  account 
in  the  world,  that  his  individuality  is  to  some  extent  respected; 
and  this  is  unquestionably  one  of  the  most  powerful  and  conserv¬ 
ative  safeguards  of  American  civilization.  In  point  of  fact,  our 
political  freedom  and  our  social  welfare  are  to-day  in  infinitely 
greater  peril  from  Pennsylvania’s  ironmasters  and  the  owners  of 
silver  mines  in  Nevada  than  from  all  the  ignorant  foreigners  that 
have  flocked  to  us  from  Europe.  Our  legacy  of  danger  for  this 
generation  was  bequeathed  us  by  Hamilton,  not  by  Jefferson.  ’  ’ 

Of  the  issues  which  took  definite  form  in  those 
critical  years  when  Hamilton  was  doing  his  ut¬ 
most  to  perpetuate  British  rule,  and  when  Jeffer¬ 
son  threw  down  the  gauntlet  and  became  Liber¬ 
ty’s  herald  and  acknowledged  leader,  Dr.  Fiske 
has  this  to  say : 

“It  certainly  required  a  pretty  liberal  interpretation  of  the 
Constitution  to  justify  Congress  in  assuming  these  debts,  but,  if 
it  had  not  been  done,  it  is  very  doubtful  if  the  Union  could  have 
long  been  held  together.  We  must  always  be  grateful  to  Hamil¬ 
ton  for  his  daring  and  sagacious  policy,  yet,  at  the  same  time,  we 
must  acknowledge  that  the  opposition  wa3  animated  by  a  sound 
and  wholesome  feeling.  Every  day  showed  more  clearly  that 
Hamilton’s  aim  was  to  insure  the  stability  of  the  Government 
through  a  firm  alliance  with  capitalists,  and  the  fear  was  natural 
that  such  a  policy,  if  not  held  in  check,  might  end  in  transforming 
the  Government  into  a  plutocracy — that  is  to  say,  a  government 
in  which  political  power  is  monopolized  by  rich  men,  and  em¬ 
ployed  in  furthering  their  selfish  interests  without  regard  to  the 
general  welfare  of  the  people.  Those  who  expressed  such  a  fear 
were  more  prescient  than  their  Federalist  adversaries  believed 
them  to  be,  for  now,  after  the  lapse  of  a  hundred  years,  the  grav¬ 
est  danger  that  threatens  us  is  precisely  such  a  plutocracy.  It 
has  been  one  of  our  national  misfortunes  that  for  three-quarters 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


189 


of  a  century  the  mere  maintenance  of  the  Union  seemed  to  call 
for  theories  which,  when  put  into  operation,  are  very  far  from 
making  a  government  that  is  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  and  for  the  people.” 

Then  of  tariff  taxation,  which  Hamilton  made 
his  chief  source  of  revenue,  and  which  we  are  still 
taught,  is  the  only  practicable  means  of  paying 
the  bills  of  our  “billion  and  a  half  Congress,” 
Dr.  Fiske  says : 

“This  gentle,  insidious  method  enables  vast  sums  to  be  taken 
from  people ’s  pockets  without  their  so  much  as  suspecting  it. 
It  raises  prices,  that  is  all;  and  the  dulness  of  the  human  mind 
may  be  safely  counted  upon,  so  that  when  a  tax  is  wrapped  up 
in  the  extra  fifty  cents  charged  for  a  yard  of  cloth,  it  is  so 
effectually  hidden  that  most  people  do  not  know  it  is  there. 
Custom-house  duties  were  accordingly  levied,  and  the  foreign 
trade  of  the  United  fetates  was  already  so  considerable  that  a 
large  revenue  was  at  once  realized  from  this  source.  To  win 
added  favor  to  this  policy  Hamilton  advocated  a  tariff  for  what 
is  called  protection,  as  well  as  for  revenue,  although  his  argument 
fell  very  short  of  meeting  the  exorbitant  requirements  of  the 
pampered  industries  of  our  own  time.  Here,  as  in  his  assumption 
policy,  it  was  Hamilton  ’s  aim  to  ally  the  government  with  pow¬ 
erful  class  interests.  He  saw  the  vast  natural  resources  of  the 
country  for  manufactures,  he  knew  that  flourishing  industries 
must  presently  spring  up,  and  he  understood  how  to  enlist  their 
selfish  interests  in  defense  of  a  liberal  construction  of  the  powers 
of  government. 

‘ 1  The  completion  of  Hamilton ’s  general  scheme  was  the  estab¬ 
lishment  of  a  national  bank,  in  winch  the  government  was  to  own 
a  certain  portion  of  the  stock,  and  which  was  to  make  certain 
stated  loans  to  the  government.  This  was  another  feature  of  the 
alliance  between  the  government  and  the  moneyed  classes.  Like 
the  other  kindred  measures,  it  was  attacked  as  unconstitutional, 
and  as  in  the  other  cases  the  objection  was  met  by  asserting  the 
loose  constructionist  theory  of  the  Constitution. 

Hamilton’s  financial  policy  was  thus  in  the  widest  sense  a 


POLITICAL  POLICY. 


190 


JEFFERSON  IAN  DEMOCRACY. 


It  was  the  exposure  of  all  Hamilton’s  schemes 
and  policies,  and  it  was  the  utter  rout  of  the  Fed¬ 
eral  party— in  short,  it  was  the  election  of 
Thomas  Jefferson  to  the  Presidency  in  1800,  that 
ushered  in  the  golden  age  of  the  Republic.  For  it 
was  then  that  the  patriots  of  the  Revolution  saw 
plainly  that  the  thirty-five-years  ’  struggle  was 
over ;  that  at  last  the  good  fight  had  been  won ;  and 
that  henceforth,  forever,  American  freemen  were 
to  be  governed  only  “by  consent  of  the  gov¬ 
erned.  9  9 

4  ‘  The  storm  is  over,  and  we  are  in  port !  ’  ’ 

— Jefferson  to  Samuel  Adams. 

Then  it  was  that  Liberty’s  herald  and  leader 
demonstrated  in  practice  what  he  had  long  held 
in  theory: — “the  self-evident  truth  that  all  men 
are  created  equal;”  that  “that  government  is 
best  which  governs  least;”  that  “this  govern¬ 
ment,  the  world’s  best  hope,  is  the  strongest  gov¬ 
ernment  on  earth ;  the  only  one  where  every  man, 
at  the  call  of  the  laws,  would  fly  to  the  standard  of 
the  law,  and  would  meet  invasion  of  the  public  or¬ 
der  as  his  own  personal  concern.”  Then  it  was 
that  he  taught  in  precept  and  proved  in  practice, 
the  principles  and  policies  which  governed  us 
through  full  sixty  years  of  the  most  vigorous 
growth  and  abounding  prosperity  for  the  whole 
people  that  we  have  ever  known,  or  that  mankind 
has  ever  witnessed.  And  it  was  during  these 
sixty  years  of  Jeffersonian  simplicity  in  govern¬ 
mental  affairs  that  we  formed  the  character,  grew 
the  manhood,  and  massed  the  power  which  first 
put  down  the  most  awful  rebellion  in  recorded 


PAGES  OF  PATRIOTIC  HISTORY. 


191 


history,  and  then  went  straight-on  with  the  work 
of  building  a  Nation  so  mighty  that  it  now  laughs 
at  the  thought  of  foreign  interference  with  the 
destiny  which  is  ours  to  fill  out. 

“  LIBER  TE ,  EGA  LITE,  FRA  TERNITE." 

It  was  a  vision  of  this  coming  reality  which  en¬ 
abled  Turgot,  the  great  philosopher  and  financier 
of  France,  to  pen  this  prophecy  in  1778 : 

“It  is  impossible  not  to  offer  vows  that  this  people  may  arrive 
at  all  the  prosperity  of  which  is  it  susceptible.  It  is  the  hope  of 
the  human  race.  It  can  become  its  model.  It  must  prove  to  the 
world,  by  the  fact,  that  men  can  be  free  and  tranquil,  and  can 
dispense  with  the  chains  of  all  kinds  which  tyrants  and  charla¬ 
tans  of  every  cloth  have  pretended  to  impose  under  the  pretext  of 
public  good.  It  must  give  the  example  of  political  liberty,  of 
religious  liberty,  of  commercial  and  industrial  liberty.  The 
asylum  which  it  opens  to  the  oppressed  of  all  nations  must  con' 
sole  the  earth.  The  facility  it  affords  for  escape  from  a  bad 
government  will  force  the  European  governments  to  be  just  and 
enlightened.  ’ 7 

And  it  was  the  same  vision  of  the  certain  future 
which  enabled  Louis  Aleman,  the  cardinal  and 
great  statesman  of  France— ever-glorious  France 
who  gave  us  La  Fayette— to  supplement  Turgot 
with  these  inspiring  words : 

*  *  Out  of  all  these  prophecies  and  forecastings  of  the  European 
mind,  there  rises  the  complete  and  splendid  vision  of  a  boundless 
new  state,  whose  language  shall  be  the  English  tongue,  whose 
citizens  shall  be  a  new  cosmopolitan  race,  whose  industry  and 
commerce  shall  flourish  as  those  of  Tyre  and  Sidon  never  did, 
whose  power  shall  be  irresistible  on  sea,  and  the  very  vastness 
of  whose  territory  and  political  unity  shall  make  it  invincible. 
*  *  *  *  So  powerful  will  this  State  become  that  ancient  Eu¬ 

rope  will  be  obliged  to  modify  its  monarchies  before  the  pres¬ 
sure  of  an  enormous,  happy,  progressive  democracy. 7  7 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


192 

If  there  be  timid  souls  who  take  fright  at  the 
plain  speaking  which  I  have  deemed  best  to  em¬ 
ploy,  or  if  there  be  those  who  question  the  sound¬ 
ness  of  the  conclusions  which  I  shall  draw  in  these 
pages,  let  them  study  Dr.  Fiske’s  “Essays,  Po¬ 
litical  and  Literary;”  let  them  read  Ins  “Civil 
Government  in  the  United  States,  his  Begin¬ 
nings  of  New  England,”  his  “Old  Virginia  and 
Her  Neighbors;”  his  “Dutch  and  Quaker  Colon¬ 
ies  in  America;”  his  “Critical  Period  of  Ameii- 
can  History;”  his  “Mississippi  Valley  in  the 
Civil  War”— let  them,  in  short,  buy  or  borrow 
and  thoughtfully  read  everything  from  the  pen  of 
this  foremost  historian  of  the  American  people. 

Having  done  this,  then  let  them  turn  to  a  study 
of  the  marvellous  writings,  and  the  more  marvel¬ 
lous  work,  of  the  man  who  penned  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  who  re-wrote  the  Code  of  Vir¬ 
ginia  as  a  model  for  all  the  States,  who  gave  us  re¬ 
ligious  liberty,  who  freed  us  from  the  feudal 
curse  of  primogeniture  and  entail,  who  made  the 
purchase  of  the  Louisiana  territory,  who  penned 
the  policy  and  shaped  the  system  of  homestead 
settlement  on  our  public  domain,  who  laid  the 
foundations  of  our  educational  systems,  and  who, 
in  precept  and  practice,  gave  scientific  precision 
and  lasting  order  to  the  American  system  of  rep¬ 
resentative  and  federated  government  by  the  peo¬ 
ple _ A  man,  in  truth,  who  lived  to  achieve  a  work 

so  grandly  great  in  creative  and  constructive 
statesmanship,  that  it  is  today,  and  must  be  for  all 
time,  the  very  basis  of  all  other  work  in  the  cause 
of  liberty,  equality,  and  human  happiness ! 


ANDREW  JACKSON,  NULLIFICATION 
AND  BANK  MONOPOLY. 


“By  the  Eternal!  the  money-power  shall  not  rule  this  land!  ,f 

‘ 1  To  say  that  any  state  may  at  pleasure  secede  from  the  Union, 
is  to  say  that  the  United  States  are  not  a  Nation/’ 

* 

“Were  we  base  enough  to  surrender  our  independent  rights, 
secured  to  us  by  the  bravery  and  blood  of  our  forefathers,  we  are 
unworthy  of  the  name  of  freemen.  ’  ’ 

“The  corporations  and  wealthy  individuals  who  are  engaged 
in  large  manufacturing  establishments,  desire  a  high  tariff  to  in¬ 
crease  their  gains.  Designing  politicians  will  support  it  to  con¬ 
ciliate  their  favor,  and  to  obtain  means  for  profuse  expenditure 
for  the  purpose  of  purchasing  influence  in  other  quarters.  Do 
not  allow  yourselves,  my  fellow-citizens,  to  be  misled  in  this  sub¬ 
ject.  It  is  a  system  of  injustice,  and,  if  persisted  m,  will  lead  to 
corruption  and  must  end  in  ruin.” 

— Andrew  Jackson. 


Chapter  YL 

After  eight  years  in  the  Presidency,  easily  the 
most  memorable  in  all  American  annals,  Jeffer¬ 
son  retired  to  Monticello— to  go  on  with  the  work 
of  penning  instruction  for  us  and  for  all  future 
ages  of  mankind ! 

James  Madison,  his  younger  companion,  life¬ 
long  friend,  and  devoted  follower,  succeeded  him 
as  President;  and  it  was  Madison’s  clear  head 
and  steady  hand  that  piloted  us  safely  through  the 
rough  seas  of  the  embargo  and  the  second  war 
with  Great  Britain— General  Andrew  Jackson 


194  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

fighting  and  winning  the  great  battle  of  New  Or¬ 
leans,  which  sealed  the  book  of  foreign  interfer¬ 
ence  with  our  national  aspirations ! 

The  “Era  of  good-feeling”  was  ushered  in 
with  the  Presidency  of  Monroe— leaving  us,  and 
leaving  all  mankind,  a  priceless  heritage  in  the 
Monroe  Doctrine ! 

And  now  we  come  to  Jackson. 

The  war  of  1812  had  left  us  a  burden  of  debt— 
and  therein  the  promoters  of  special  legislation 
found  their  first  opportunity  since  Hamilton’s 
time.  They  could  make  little  headway  while  a 
Democratic  President  like  Monroe  was  in  the 
White  House;  but  already  Clay,  Webster  and 
John  Quincy  Adams  loomed  large  as  Presidential 
candidates,  and  leaders  of  the  propaganda  of  Pro¬ 
tection,  Internal  Improvements,  and  a  re-charter 
of  the  trouble-breeding  Bank  of  the  United  States 
— Hamilton’s  now  familiar  legacy  of  British 
finance,  British  Protection,  and  British  Paternal¬ 
ism  in  national  affairs !  Jackson  was  the  oppos¬ 
ing  candidate,  and  he  stood  squarely  for  Jeffer¬ 
sonian  principles  and  rugged  Americanism. 

In  the  Presidential  election  of  1824,  the  vote  in 
the  Electoral  College  stood  thus : 


Andrew  Jackson .  99 

John  Quincy  Adams .  84 

William  H.  Crawford .  41 

Henry  Clay .  37 

Total .  261 

Majority  Necessary .  131 


No  election  resulting,  the  contest  was  fought 
out  in  the  House  of  Representatives ;  and  the  Con- 


ANDREW  JACKSON. 


195 


stitution  requiring  that  a  choice  should  he  con¬ 
fined  to  the  three  leading  candidates,  Clay  was 
out  of  the  race,  and  Crawford  was  dying  of  pa¬ 
ralysis.  But  Clay  was  Speaker  of  the  House,  and 
the  most  popular  and  influential  Speaker  we  have 
ever  had.  Jackson’s  friends  claimed  that,  in  ad¬ 
dition  to  leading  in  the  Electoral  College,  he  was 
obviously  the  popular  second  choice  in  all  the 
states  which  voted  for  both  Crawford  and  Clay. 
The  Legislature  of  Kentucky,  Clay’s  state,  even 
passed  a  resolution  instructing  their  representa¬ 
tives  to  vote  for  Jackson.  But  the  rivalry  be¬ 
tween  Clay  and  Jackson  was  embittered  by  per¬ 
sonal  enmity;  and  it  being  anything  to  beat  Jack- 
son,  Clay’s  vote  and  influence  made  John  Quincy 
Adams  President. 

So  elected,  Adams  at  once  tendered  Clay  the 
post  of  Secretary  of  State  in  his  Cabinet,  thus 
putting  him  in  line  of  succession  to  the  Presi¬ 
dency,  as  was  the  custom  in  those  days — and  Clay 
made  the  mistake  of  his  life  in  accepting!  Then 
arose  the  cry  of  “  bargain,  intrigue  and  corrup¬ 
tion,”  which  led  on  to  a  campaign  of  personal 
abuse  the  most  regrettable  in  our  history.  Jack¬ 
son’s  friends  charged  that  Clay  and  Adams  had 
entered  into  a  corrupt  bargain  to  deprive  him  of 
the  Presidency,  and  to  defeat  the  will  of  the  peo¬ 
ple;  and  Jackson  himself  believed  it  to  be  true. 
Clay  and  Adams  indignantly  denied  the  charge, 
presenting  abundant  evidence  to  disprove  it ;  and 
in  the  calm  light  of  this  late  day  we  can  see  plain¬ 
ly  that  no  breath  of  suspicion  can  rest  against 
the  veracity  and  spotless  integrity  of  either  Clay 
or  Adams.  Indeed,  they  were  men  of  heroic  type 


196 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


in  point  of  personal  honor  and  fearless  frankness 
in  advocating  what  they  believed  to  be  right ;  but 
they  were  both  sadly  limited  in  political  foresight, 
as  history  has  clearly  proved.  And  Jackson 
rightly  divined  that  however  honest  they  might  be 
in  their  convictions,  Clay,  Adams,  and  Webster, 
were  none  the  less  deliberately  seeking  to  advance 
their  political  ambitions  through  a  party  policy  of 
legislation  in  favor  of  special  interests.  This 
view  was  abundantly  confirmed  by  the  enactment 
of  “the  Tariff  of  Abominations ’ ’  in  1828— the  di¬ 
rect  result  of  which  was  the  Nullification  rebellion 
in  1832. 

In  the  campaign  of  1828,  therefore,  the  battle- 
cry  was  6  4  The  rights  of  the  people  against  bargain 
and  corruption ; ’  ’  and  it  was  then  that  Jackson 
addressed  a  letter  to  the  Kentucky  committee  in 
which  he  first  used  the  phrase  now  certain  to  be¬ 
come  famous.  Said  he : 

“If  it  be  true  that  the  administration  have  gone  into  power 
contrary  to  the  voice  of  the  nation,  and  are  now  expecting  by 
means  of  this  power,  thus  acquired,  to  mould  the  public  will  into 
an  acquiescence  with  their  authority,  then  is  the  issue  fairly  made 
out — Shall  the  government  or  the  people  rule ?” 

General  Floyd  of  Virginia  also  stated  the  issue 
in  telling  fashion  by  saying,  we  are  “now  engaged 
in  a  great  war — a  war  of  patronage  and  power 
against  patriotism  and  the  people.  ’  ’ 

When  the  contest  came,  Jackson  simply  swept 
the  country.  Adams  only  carried  New  England, 
New  Jersey  and  Delaware,  with  a  portion  of  the 
electoral  votes  of  New  York  and  Maryland.  In 
Pennsylvania  Jackson  had  a  popular  majority  of 
50,000;  and  in  the  Electoral  College  he  received 


ANDREW  JACKSON. 


197 


178  to  83  votes  for  Adams.  Jackson  was  no 
sooner  in  the  White  House  than  he  began  the  work 
of  insisting  upon  a  reform  of  the  tariff,  exposing 
the  methods  of  the  Bank,  and  vetoing  log-rolling 
measures  for  internal  improvements.  But  at 
every  point  he  encountered  the  formidable  oppo¬ 
sition  of  the  combined  forces  of  Protection  and 
special  legislation,  then  brilliantly  led  by  Henry 
Clay  and  Daniel  Webster.  The  contest  was  exact¬ 
ly  parallel  to  that  which  occurred  when  the  people 
repudiated  the  McKinley  bill  and  re-elected  Mr. 
Cleveland  in  1892— and  the  result  was  the  same. 
The  will  of  the  people  was  defeated  by  Clay  and 
Webster,  then  both  in  the  Senate,  precisely  as  in 
1894  the  will  of  the  people  was  again  defeated  by 
Aldrich,  Lodge,  Allison,  Elkins,  Quay  and  others 
—all  in  the  Senate ! 

But  Jackson  was  relentless,  and  fortunately  he 
had  ahead  of  him  the  power  of  another  appeal  to  a 
vote  of  the  people.  As  the  contest  wore  along  he 
was  able  to  make  it  perfectly  apparent,  as  he  had 
clearly  seen  from  the  beginning,  that  the  real 
power  of  the  “combination”  centered  in  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States— that  permanent 4  4  engine  of 
influence  ’  ’  contrived  and  set  up  by  Hamilton.  By 
this  time,  as  Jackson  said,  the  Bank  had  been 
‘ 1  converted  into  a  permanent  electioneering  ma¬ 
chine.”  Senator  Benton  of  Missouri,  the  leader 
of  the  Democratic  forces  in  Congress,  thus  point¬ 
edly  stated  the  issue : 

4 ‘You  may  continue  to  be  for  a  bank  and  for  Jackson,  but  you 
cannot  be  for  this  bank  and  for  Jackson.  The  bank  is  now  the 
open,  as  it  has  long  been  the  secret,  enemy  of  J ackson. 

“The  war  is  now  upon  Jackson,  and  if  he  is  defeated  all  the 


198 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


rest  will  fall  an  easy  prey.  What  individual  could  stand  in  the 
states  against  the  power  of  that  bank,  and  that  bank  flushed 
with  a  victory  over  the  conqueror  of  the  conquerors  of  Bona¬ 
parte?  The  whole  government  would  fall  into  the  hands  of  the 
moneyed  power.  An  oligarchy  would  be  immediately  established, 
and  that  oligarchy  in  a  few  generations  would  ripen  into  a 
monarchy. 7  7 

But  Jackson’s  priceless  phrase,  now  slightly 
modified  to  meet  the  definite  issue  of  1832,  stated 
the  whole  question  so  clearly  that  the  people  could 
not  misunderstand : 

‘  ‘  Shall  the  Bank,  ok  the  people  rule  f 9  9 

That  was  the  issue  in  a  nutshell,  and  at  last  the 
grand  old  hero  had  them  cornered  where  they 
could  not  get  away!  Jackson  was  re-nominated 
amid  a  blaze  of  Democratic  enthusiasm,  and  the 
Whigs  confidently  nominated  Clay— precisely  as 
the  Republicans  are  now  confidently  planning  to 
nominate  Roosevelt.  When  the  contest  came  and 
the  people  spoke,  Jackson  had  again  swept  the 
country!  In  the  Electoral  College  he  received 
219  of  the  total  288  votes — Clay  receiving  but  49. 
Commenting  upon  this  result  in  his  admirable 
biography  of  Clay,  Mr.  Carl  Schurz  says : 

‘ 1  It  was  a  stunning  defeat.  Clay  and  his  friends  stood  won¬ 
dering  how  it  could  have  happened. 

‘ 1  Clay  had  committed  two  grave  blunders  in  statesmanship,  and 
one  equally  grave  in  political  tactics.  The  South  was  in  a  dan¬ 
gerous  ferment  against  the  tariff.  The  impending  extinguish¬ 
ment  of  the  public  debt  made  a  large  reduction  of  the  revenue 
necessary.  The  measure  he  (Clay)  did  propose  reduced  the  rev¬ 
enue  very  little,  and,  by  maintaining  the  high  protective  duties, 
exasperated  the  South  still  more.  This  was  the  first  blunder  in 
statesmanship.  The  other  was  that,  instead  of  advising  the 
United  States  Bank  to  keep  clear  of  politics  and  to  accede  to 


ANDREW  JACKSON. 


199 


any  reasonable  modification  of  its  charter  that  might  avert  the 
opposition  of  Jackson,  he  forced  the  fight,  and  made  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  the  bank  a  party  question. 

“The  blunder  in  political  tactics,  was  that  he  believed  he  could 
excite  the  enthusiasm  of  the  masses  for  a  great  moneyed  corpora¬ 
tion  in  its  contest  against  a  popular  hero  like  Jackson,— a  most 
amazing  infatuation;  and  thus  he  made  the  bank  question  the 
leading  issue  in  the  presidential  campaign.” 

And  bo  might  have  added,  that  Clay  spent  the 
remainder  of  his  political  career  in  explaining  and 
trying  to  induce  the  people  to  forgive  and  forget 
— hut  in  vain.  The  people  never  would  permit 
him  to  he  President ! 

In  like  manner,  aspiring  politicians  need  to  take 
very  careful  note  of  the  further  fact,  that  Daniel 
Webster  marred  a  brilliant  career  and  died  a  dis¬ 
appointed  man,  solely  because  the  lust  of  ambition 
tempted  him  to  betray  the  people’s  cause  by  re¬ 
pudiating  his  deep-seated  and  outspoken  free- 
trade  convictions.  For  it  was  Daniel  Webster, 
the  professed  Protectionist,  who  in  1820,  then  in 
the  fullness  of  his  intellectual  powers,”  was  for¬ 
mally  selected  as  the  spokesman  of  New  England 
merchants,  then  opposed  to  Protection,  and  in  a 
great  speech  he  “  claimed  for  America  the  rights 
of  American  free  trade,  ’  ’  going  on  to  say  this : 

‘  ‘  To  individuals,  this  policy  is  as  injurious  as  it  is  to  govern¬ 
ment.  A  system  of  artificial  government  protection  leads  the 
people  to  too  much  reliance  on  government.  If  left  to  their  own 
choice  of  pursuits,  they  depend  on  their  own  skill  and  their  own 
industry.  But  if  government  essentially  affects  their  occupations 
by  its  systems  of  bounties  and  preferences,  it  is  natural,  when  in 
distress,  that  they  should  call  on  government  for  relief.  Hence 
a  perpetual  contest,  carried  on  between  the  different  interests  of 
society.  Agriculturists  taxed  today  to  sustain  manufacturers— 
commerce  taxed  tomorrow  to  sustain  agriculture— and  then  im- 


200 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


positions,  perhaps,  on  both  manufactures  and  agriculture  to  sup¬ 
port  commerce.  And  when  government  has  exhausted  its  inven¬ 
tion  in  these  modes  of  legislation  it  finds  the  result  less  favor¬ 
able  than  the  original  and  natural  state  and  course  of  things. 
He  could  hardly  conceive  of  anything  worse  than  a  policy  which 
should  place  the  great  interests  of  his  country  in  hostility  to 
one  another — a  policy  which  should  keep  them  in  constant  con¬ 
flict,  and  bring  them  every  year  to  fight  their  battles  in  the  com¬ 
mittee  rooms  of  the  House  of  Representatives  at  Washington.  ” 

But  we  have  seen  only  a  small  part  of  the  heroic 
public  service  which  has  immortalized  Andrew 
Jackson’s  name.  Every  soldier,  and  every  sol¬ 
dier’s  son,  needs  to  read  and  ponder  the  thrilling 
story  of  his  daring  and  resplendent  military  ca¬ 
reer — for  here  was  a  dauntless  and  an  invincible 
commander  who  never  was  and  never  could  be 
beaten !  And  every  citizen,  every  defender  of  the 
blessed  Union  which  has  cost  so  much  in  blood 
and  treasure,  needs  to  brand  in  memory  the  facts 
which  follow. 

As  the  logical  and  deplorable  outcome  of  legis¬ 
lation  for  the  exclusive  benefit  of  New  England 
and  the  North,  at  the  direct  and  heavy  expense  of 
the  people  of  the  South,  all  the  leading  men  of 
South  Carolina  met  in  State  Convention  at 
Charleston  on  November  24,  1832,  and,  without 
a  dissenting  voice,  passed  an  Ordinance  embody¬ 
ing  these  declarations: 

That  the  tariff  law  of  1828,  and  the  amendment  to  the  same 
of  1832,  were  null,  void,  and  no  law,  nor  binding  upon  this  State, 
its  officers  or  citizens.  ” 

“  No  duties  enjoined  by  that  law  or  its  amendment,  shall  be 
paid  or  permitted  to  be  paid,  in  the  State  of  South  Carolina, 
after  the  first  day  of  February,  1833.” 

The  document  was  of  course  lengthy,  but  I  give 


AND11EW  JACKSON. 


201 


enough  to  indicate  its  clear  intent.  The  Governor 
of  the  State,  Robert  Y.  Hayne,  then  sent  a  mes¬ 
sage  to  the  Legislature  in  which  he  said : 

“I  hereby  publicly  declare  that  I  hold  myself  bound,  by  the 
highest  of  all  obligations,  to  carry  into  full  effect,  not  only  the 
Ordinance  of  the  convention,  but  every  act  of  the  legislature, 
etc. ’ ’ 

The  legislature  instantly  responded  by  passing 
the  acts  requisite  for  carrying  the  Ordinance  into 
practical  etf ect ;  the  Governor  was  authorized  to 
accept  volunteers ;  and  4  4  the  state  resounded  with 
the  noise  of  warlike  preparation. ’  9  Medals  were 
struck  bearing  the  legend  “John  C.  Calhoun- 
First  President  of  the  Southern  Confederacy.  ’  ’ 
Blue  cockades,  with  palmetto  buttons  in  the  cen¬ 
ter,  “appeared  upon  thousands  of  hats,  bonnets 
and  bosoms.  7  1  ( Parton. ) 

Now,  mark  you,  this  was  Andrew  Jackson’s  na¬ 
tive  State.  He  was  a  Southern  man,  and  himself 
a  slave-owner.  And  all  the  power  of  his  mighty 
will,  every  resource  of  his  Presidential  office,  had 
been  used,  and  were  still  being  used,  to  secure  the 
repeal  of  “the  Tariff  of  Abominations,”  which 
caused  all  the  trouble. 

But  how  did  Andrew  Jackson  meet  secession! 
Three  weeks  before  the  convention  was  held, 
he  carefully  penned  explicit  instructions  to  the 
customs  officers  to  use  the  utmost  vigilance  in 
enforcing  the  very  letter  of  the  law,  and  to  report 
instantly  the  slightest  disposition  to  violate  it. 
He  then  issued  a  Proclamation,  which  is  to  this 
day  a  foundation  stone  of  our  national  institu¬ 
tions  ;  and  straightway  he  strengthened  the  garri- 


202 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


sons  with  national  troops  under  General  Winfield 
Scott,  and  assembled  a  fleet  in  Charleston  harbor 
in  command  of  the  young  man  whom  we  know  as 
Admiral  Farragut.  When  the  fateful  day  arrived, 
Mr.  Parton  tells  us  that  John  C.  Calhoun  was  the 
most  thoroughly  frightened  man  in  Washington. 
For  Old  Hickory  had  made  it  known  that  in  the 
event  of  any  trouble,  his  first  move  would  be  to 
jail  Calhoun,  and  every  member  of  Congress  from 
South  Carolina,  on  a  charge  of  High  Treason ! 

There  was  no  disturbance— no  secession. 

And  this  is  why,  in  those  anxious  and  awful 
days  of  1860-61,  patriots  who  remembered  the 
past  sighed  deeply, 4  4  Oh  I  for  one  hour  of  Andrew 
J  ackson.  ’  ’ 

Some  time  after  these  events,  writing  to  ex- 
President  Monroe  concerning  the  first  secession 
convention,  held  at  Hartford,  Connecticut,  in  1815 
—when  the  Embargo  touched  New  England’s 
pocket  nerve  and  when  New  England  set  the  se¬ 
cession  example — Jackson  said  this: 

“I  am  free  to  declare,  had  I  commanded  the  military  depart¬ 
ment  when  the  Hartford  Convention  met,  if  it  had  been  the  last 
act  of  my  life,  1  should  have  punished  the  three  principal  leaders 
of  the  party.  I  am  certain  an  independent  court-martial  would 
have  condemned  them,  under  the  second  section  of  the  act  estab¬ 
lishing  rules  and  regulations  for  the  government  of  the  army  of 
the  United  States.  These  kind  of  men,  although  called  Federal¬ 
ists,  are  really  monarchists  and  traitors  to  the  constituted  gov¬ 
ernment.  ’ } 

Mr.  Roosevelt,  the  original  free-trader,  now 
posing  as  the  only  logical  candidate  of  the  Pro¬ 
tection  party,  tells  us  in  his  life  of  Benton  that 
Jackson  was  an  4  4  ignorant,  headstrong,  and 


ANDREW  JACKSON. 


203 


straiglitforward  soldier.”  But  I  fancy  that  be¬ 
fore  Theodore  Roosevelt  is  much  older,  the  Amer¬ 
ican  people  will  teach  him  that  Andrew  Jackson 
deserved  and  won  immortal  fame,  because  he 
lived  to  prove  that  a  soldier’s  courage,  a  soldier’s 
conscience,  and  a  soldier’s  invincible  will  are 
needed  in  the  White  Honse,  now  and  always,  to 
suppress  insurrection  in  whatever  form,  and  es¬ 
pecially,  to  hold  at  bay  the  iniquity,  the  avarice, 
and  the  blind  greed  of  men  who  seek  to  enrich 
themselves  through  Protection  legislation  and 
the  secret  and  conscienceless  manipulation  of  the 
people’s  franchises  for  public  utilities. 

“Time  at  last  sets  all  things  even.” 

I  have  commended  Mr.  Schurz’s  biography  of 
Clay  to  my  readers,  because  it  is  by  all  odds  the 
best  review  of  that  critical  period  in  American 
history  that  I  have  ever  yet  found.  But  I  would 
remind  every  reader  that  Mr.  Schurz  is  one  of  a 
group  of  commendable  and  earnest  workers  in  the 
cause  of  Civil  Service  Reform  who  delude  them¬ 
selves  with  the  idea  that  Jackson  is  mainly  re¬ 
sponsible  for  all  the  ills  that  we  have  suffered 
from  the  spoils  system.  That  is  so  wide  of  the 
truth  that  it  is  contemptible!  And  I  predict  that 
hereafter,  civil  service  reformers  will  find  it  alto¬ 
gether  convenient  to  recognize  the  fact  that  the 
spoils  system  had  its  beginnings  in  New  York 
State  politics  as  early  as  1800,  under  Aaron 
Burr’s  influence.  When  Andrew  Jackson  was 
commissioned  to  execute  the  people’s  will,  he 
found  the  public  service  of  the  whole  country  per¬ 
meated  with  Protection  influence— found  that 


204 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


even  little  whipper-snappers  in  department  offices 
in  Washington,  and  especially  throughout  the 
Protection  North,  were  active  partisans  in  open 
league  with  Clay,  Webster,  and  Adams;  and  all 
their  resources  were  employed  to  oppose  reform 
and  to  promote  Protection,  Internal  Improve¬ 
ments,  and  the  Bank  Monopoly.  Jackson 
“turned  the  rascals  out”— as  he  should  have 
done,  heaven  bless  his  immortal  and  patriot  mem¬ 
ory! 

After  forty  years  of  Protection  jobbery,  and 
disgraceful  municipal  corruption,  the  sentimental 
civil  service  reformers  of  our  day  have  waked-up 
to  the  necessity  for  doing  precisely  what  Jack¬ 
son’s  genius  prompted  him  to  do  and  teach  full 
three  generations  ago:— that  is  to  say,  civil  serv¬ 
ice  reformers  who  have  any  leaven  of  common 
sense,  now  advise,  individually  and  collectively, 
that  public  servants  be  dismissed  for  active  parti¬ 
sanship. 

11  The  moment  a  man  yields  his  judgment  to  popular  whim,  he 
may  be  compared  to  a  ship  without  it3  rudder  in  a  gale — he  is 
sure  to  be  dashed  against  a  rock. 11  — Andrew  JacTcson . 

And  if  glorious  old  Andrew  J  ackson  were  alive 
to-day,  who  dares  to  doubt  that  he  would  be  lead¬ 
ing  the  van  of  those  who  know  that  “a  public  of¬ 
fice  is  a  public  trust” — Those  who  know  that  little 
office-holders  are  the  mere  creatures  of  the  politi¬ 
cal  machine — Those  who  know  that  the  only  way 
to  purify  the  public  service  is  to  lay  bare  the  mo¬ 
tives  and  methods  of  the  millionaires  who  first 
debase  and  then  use  the  political  machine  to  en¬ 
rich  themselves  at  public  expense— Those  who 


ANDREW  JACKSON. 


205 


know,  as  Jefferson  and  Jackson  lived  to  prove, 
that  the  one  thing  more  needful  than  all  others  is, 

to  DO  THE  RIGHT,  AND  DARE  THE  CONSEQUENCES! 

And  what  is  the  judgment  of  history  upon  J ack- 
son’s  work?  Let  Mr.  Schurz  speak  first: 

4  4  The  anti- Jackson  current  in  the  local  elections,  which  cheered 
the  Whigs  so  much,  did  not  last  long.  The  business  panic  caused 
by  the  removal  of  the  deposits  was  for  a  time  genuine  and  serious 
enough.  But,  as  people  became  aware  that  the  removal  of  the 
deposits  did  not  mean  the  immediate  breaking  down  of  every¬ 
thing,  the  crisis  gradually  subsided,  and  the  opposition  lost 
much  of  their  political  capital. 

“It  would  have  been  well  for  Clay  and  his  party  had  they 
recognized  the  fact  that  not  only  this  Bank  of  the  United  States 
could  not  be  saved,  but  that  no  other  great  central  bank,  as  the 
fiscal  agent  of  the  government,  could  be  put  in  its  place  with 
benefit  to  the  country. 

4  4  An  institution  whose  interests  depend  upon  the  favor  of  the 
government  is  always  apt  to  be  driven  into  politics,  be  it  by  the 
exactions  of  its  political  friends,  or  by  the  attacks  of  its  political 
enemies.  Its  capacity  for  mischief  will  then  be  proportioned  to 
the  greatness  of  its  power ;  and  the  power  of  a  central  bank,  act¬ 
ing  as  the  fiscal  agent  of  the  government,  disposing  of  a  large 
capital,  and  controlling  branch  banks  all  over  the  country,  must 
necessarily  be  very  large.  Being  able  to  encourage  or  embarrass 
business  by  expanding  or  curtailing  bank  accommodations,  and  to 
favor  this  and  punish  that  locality  by  transferring  its  facilities, 
it  may  benefit  or  injure  the  interests  of  large  masses  of  men,  and 
thereby  exercise  an  influence  upon  their  political  conduct,  not 
to  speak  of  its  opportunities  for  propitiating  men  in  public  po¬ 
sition,  as  well  as  the  press,  by  its  substantial  favors.  So  it  was 
in  the  case  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  Although  Jack¬ 
son's  denunciations  of  its  corrupting  practices  went  far  beyond 
the  truth,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  when  it  at  last  fought  for 
the  renewal  of  its  charter  and  against  the  removal  of  the  de¬ 
posits,  it  did  use  its  power  for  political  effect. 

4  4  An  institution  like  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  whatever 
its  temporary  usefulness  may  have  been,  is  therefore  not  a  proper 
fiscal  agent  for  the  government  of  a  democratic  country ;  and  the 


206 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


American  people  have  reason  to  remember  with  gratitude  Salmon 
P.  Chase  and  the  Congress  of  1863  for  having,  in  the  greatest 
crisis  of  public  affairs,  given  the  country  a  national  banking 
system  equal  to  the  United  States  Bank  in  efficiency,  superior  to 
it  in  safety,  avoiding  the  evils  of  a  concentrated  money  power, 
and,  as  subsequently  perfected,  entirely  free  from  that  flavor  of 
monopoly  which  made  the  old  bank  in  its  time  so  odious.  ’ ; 

Mr.  Schurz  honors  himself  by  these  frank 
words— does  some  scant  honor  to  the  patriot-sol¬ 
dier  who  devoted  a  long  and  brilliant  public  ca¬ 
reer  to  the  preservation  of  that  liberty,  that  equal¬ 
ity  and  that  Union,  which,  for  three  centuries 
past,  have  made  America  a  safe  refuge  for  mil¬ 
lions  of  European  freemen  who,  like  Mr.  Schurz, 
have  fled  from  tyranny  and  oppression  at  home. 

Thus  the  calm  judgment  of  history  is  now  be¬ 
ginning  to  make  it  plain  that  Andrew  Jackson 
rightly  ranks  in  the  forefront  of  our  greatest 
statesmen— not  alone  for  what  he  did,  but  espe¬ 
cially  for  what  he  thought !  Men  in  great  station 
become  great  statesmen  only  when  they  divine  the 
fundamental  truth— only  when  in  words,  and 
in  actions  which  speak  louder  than  words,  they 
give  form  and  substance  to  the  eternal  right !  For 
in  the  main,  history  is  a  mere  pageant  and  vain 
show  of  great  offices,  high  honors,  and  golden  op¬ 
portunities  bestowed  upon  little  men  who  knew 
not  how  to  use  them. 

‘ 1  The  many  are  called,  but  the  few  are  chosen. 1 1 

Washington,  Jefferson,  Jackson,  and  Lincoln, 
tower  majestically  above  all  other  figures  in 
American  history,  because  “their  heads  were 
equal  to  true  and  solid  calculations  of  glory’ 7 — 


ANDREW  JACKSON. 


207 


because  they  saw  the  right,  and  they  dared  to  do 
it  !  And  if  now  my  readers  will  turn  to  Dr.  J ohn 
Fiske’s  two  Essays  on  Jackson  and  his  era,  there 
they  will  find  the  scientific  and  philosophic  histor¬ 
ian  of  the  American  people  paying  this  speaking 
tribute  to  the  genius  and  patriotism  which  in¬ 
spired  every  thought  and  act  of  our  greatest  sol¬ 
dier-patriot  since  Washington: 

“Among  the  ablest  books  on  government  that  have  ever  been 
written— books  that  ought  to  be  carefully  read  and  deeply  pon¬ 
dered  by  every  intelligent  American  man  and  woman— are  the 
three  works  of  Herbert  Spencer,  entitled  ‘ ( Social  Statics,  The 
Study  of  Sociology,  ’  ’  and  *  ‘  Man  and  the  State.  *  ’  The  theory  of 
government  set  forth  in  these  books  is  that  of  the  most  clear¬ 
headed  and  powerful  thinker  now  living  in  the  world,  a  man  who, 
moreover,  is  thinking  the  thoughts  of  to-morrow  as  well  as  of 
to-day.  In  spirit  it  is  most  profoundly  American,  but  not  in 
the  sense  in  which  that  word  was  understood  by  Clay  and  the 
Whigs.  It  was  JacTcson  whose  sounder  instincts  prompted  him  to 
a  course  of  action  quite  in  harmony  with  the  highest  political 
philosophy.  During  the  administration  of  John  Quincy  Adams 
there  was  fast  growing  up  a  tendency  toward  the  mollycoddling, 
old  granny  theory  of  government,  according  to  which  the  ruling 
powers  are  to  take  care  of  the  people,  build  their  roads  for  them, 
do  their  banking  for  them,  rob  Peter  to  pay  Paul  for  carrying 
on  a  losing  business,  and  tinker  and  bemuddle  things  generally. 
It  was,  of  course,  beyond  the  power  of  any  man  to  override  a 
tendency  of  this  sort,  but  J ackson  did  much  to  check  it  ;  and 
still  more  would  have  come  from  his  initiative  if  the  questions  of 
slavery  and  secession  had  not  so  soon  come  up  to  absorb  men’s 
minds  and  divert  attention  from  everything  else.  The  protective 
theory  of  government  has  too  much  life  in  it  yet;  but  without 
Jackson  it  would  no  doubt  have  been  worse.  His  destruction  of 
the  bank  was  brought  about  in  a  way  that  one  cannot  wish  to  see 
often  repeated;  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  it  has  saved 
us  from  a  great  deal  of  trouble  and  danger.  By  this  time  the 
bank,  if  it  had  lasted,  would  probably  have  become  a  most  for¬ 
midable  engine  of  corruption.” 


208 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


I  shall  not  stop  here  to  review  in  detail  onr  po¬ 
litical  and  economic  history  between  Jackson’s 
time  and  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War;  because 
the  Slavery  issue  then  arose  to  overshadow  every 
other  political  question.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
Jackson’s  splendid  work  finally  gave  us  the  boon 
of  ‘‘the  Free  Trade  Tariff  of  1846;”  and  then  it 
was  that  the  country’s  commerce  and  industry 
rushed  forward  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Then  it 
was  that  ‘  ‘  Go  West,  young  man !  ’  ’  became  the  in¬ 
spiring  watchword '  of  the  whole  Atlantic  sea¬ 
board.  Then  it  was  that  the  great  era  of  railroad 
building  began  to  amaze  the  world  with  the  rapid¬ 
ity  of  its  progress.  Then  it  was  that  the  far- 
famed  American  Clippers  sailed  the  seas  and  car¬ 
ried  our  commerce  and  our  colors  triumphantly 
to  every  port  and  harbor  of  the  world.  For  then, 
as  Dr.  Fiske  wisely  observes,  we  had  not  learned 
how  ‘  ‘  to  protect  ships  out  of  existence.  ’  ’ 


ABEAHAM  LINCOLN,  AND  FORGOTTEN 

HISTORY. 


‘‘I  tremble  for  my  country  when  I  think  of  the  negro,  and 
know  that  God  is  just.”  —Thomas  Jefferson. 

*  “All  the  agony  that  creased  its  furrows  upon  the  brow  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  foretold  in  those  (Jefferson’s)  solemn 
words.”  — Dr.  John  FisTce. 

“If  slavery  be  not  wrong,  nothing  is  wrong.” 

“I  have  no  prejudice  against  the  Southern  people.  They  are 
what  we  would  be  in  their  situation.  If  slavery  did  not  exist 
among  them,  they  would  not  introduce  it.  If  it  did  now  exist 
among  us,  we  would  not  instantly  give  it  up.” 

— Abraham  Lincoln. 


Chapter  VII. 

I  presume  that  a  very  large  majority  of  the 
young  men  who  boast  themselves  Republicans  and 
who  proudly  follow  the  lead  of  Mr.  Hanna  and 
Mr.  Roosevelt  in  voting  for  Protection  and  “a 
full  dinner  pail, 1  ’  honestly  believe  they  are  voting 
for  Abraham  Lincoln’s  principles. 

But  the  reader  who  has  followed  me  thus  far— 
and  especially  the  reader  whose  recollections  go 
back  to  the  days  when  the  great  party  of  freedom 
was  forming— will  require  no  argument  to  demon¬ 
strate  that  the  Republican  party  was  deliberately 
created  as  a  new  political  organization,  first,  to  se¬ 
cure  our  great  West  against  the  introduction  of 
slavery,  as  specifically  provided  by  Jefferson 
when  he  drew  the  Ordinance  of  1784-87 ;  and  be- 


210  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

yond  that,  to  oppose  identically  the  same  Protec¬ 
tion,  identically  the  same  system  of  ring  rnle  by 
aristocrats,  and  identically  the  same  scandalous 
abuses  of  power  for  which  the  Republican  party 
of  our  day  stands  squarely  responsible. 

The  early  Republican  leaders  not  only  repudi¬ 
ated  slavery  extension,  Democratic  secession,  and 
Whig  Protection,  but  they  were  so  intent  upon 
standing  for  the  principles  of  the  fathers,  that 
they  adopted  the  very  name— Republican— by 
which  the  party  of  the  people  had  been  designated 
when  Jefferson  led  in  opposition  to  the  aristo¬ 
cratic  and  monarchical  tendencies  of  the  old  Fed¬ 
eral  party. 

Thousands  of  men  and  women  still  living  well 
remember,  also,  that  because  Lincoln  repudiated 
the  confiscation  proposals  of  the  Northern  aboli¬ 
tionists,  anci  also  repudiated  the  rebellion  threats 
of  the  Southern  leaders ;  because  he  stood 
staunchly  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union  and 
the  abolition  of  slavery  through  compensation  to 
slave  owners;  in  other  words,  because  he  stood 
bravely  for  our  Constitution’s  guarantee  of  prop¬ 
erty  rights,  stood  for  the  interests  of  the  whole 
people  as  opposed  to  the  pocket  interest  of  the 
North  and  the  slave-holding  interests  of  the 
South,  the  moneyed  aristocracy  of  the  North 
joined  the  slave-holding  aristocracy  of  the  South 
in  denouncing  him  as  a  “free-nigger  agitator,” 
a  “Black  Republican,”  a  political  demagogue,  a 
buffoon,  and  a  vulgar  clown— denounced  him  pre¬ 
cisely  as  Jefferson  and  Samuel  Adams  were  de¬ 
nounced  in  their  day ;  denounced  and  spurned  his 
leadership  precisely  as  Andrew  Jackson  was 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  211 

spurned  and  despised  by  the  bank  monopolists 
and  the  Whig  Protectionists  of  his  day. 

It  is  a  further  significant  fact,  now  apparently 
entirely  forgotten,  that  Salmon  P.  Chase,  founder 
of  our  national  banking  system  and  easily  the 
most  commanding  figure  in  Lincoln’s  cabinet,  not 
only  avowed  himself  a  Jeffersonian  Democrat, 
but  actually  sought  the  Democratic  nomination 
for  President  in  1872.  In  name,  in  principle,  in 
purpose,  and  notably  in  the  person  of  its  immor¬ 
tal  leader,  the  Republican  party  was  essentially 
the  party  of  “the  plain  people” — as  opposed  to 
an  aristocracy  of  wealth  and  privilege.  Lincoln 
was,  in  very  truth,  “a  man  of  the  people”— a 
nobleman  sprung  from  obscurity  and  poverty,  but 
bred  of  the  stock  that  has  builded  and  saved  our 
free  institutions.  And  just  what  Lincoln  stood 
for,  just  what  he  had  in  mind,  and  precisely  what 
he  proposed  as  a  means  of  saving  the  Union,  abol¬ 
ishing  slavery,  and  obliterating  sectional  hatred 
and  strife,  has  never  been  more  clearly  indicated 
than  in  this  noble  tribute  to  his  genius  and  patri¬ 
otism  from  Col.  Henry  Watterson,  the  brilliant 
Southern  editor: 

“  Jefferson  Davis  declared  that,  next  to  the  surrender  at  Appo¬ 
mattox,  the  murder  of  Abraham  Lincoln  made  the  darkest  day  in 
the  calendar  for  the  South  and  the  people  of  the  South.  Why? 
Because  Mr.  Davis  had  come  to  a  knowledge  of  the  magnanimity 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  heart  and  the  generosity  of  his  intentions. 

“  If  Lincoln  had  lived  there  would  have  been  no  era  of  recon¬ 
struction,  with  its  repressive  agencies  and  oppressive  legislation. 
If  Lincoln  had  lived  there  would  have  been  wanting  to  the  ex¬ 
tremism  of  the  time  the  bloody  cue  of  his  taking  off,  to  mount 
the  steeds  and  spur  the  flank  of  vengeance.  For  Lincoln  enter¬ 
tained,  with  respect  to  the  rehabilitation  of  the  Union,  the  single 


212 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


wish  that  the  Southern  States,  to  use  his  homely  phraseology, 
‘should  come  back  home  and  behave  themselves,’  and,  if  he  had 
lived  he  would  have  made  this  wish  effectual,  as  he  made  every¬ 
thing  effectual  to  which  he  seriously  addressed  himself. 

‘  ‘  His  was  the  genius  of  common  sense.  Of  perfect  intellectual 
aplomb,  he  sprang  from  a  Virginia  pedigree  and  was  born  in 
Kentucky.  He  knew  all  about  the  South,  its  institutions,  its 
traditions  and  its  peculiarities.  From  first  to  last  throughout  the 
angry  debates  preceding  the  war,  amid  all  the  passions  of  the 
war  itself,  not  one  vindictive,  proscriptive  word  fell  from  his 
tongue  or  pen,  while  during  its  progress  there  was  scarcely  a  day 
when  he  did  not  project  his  great  personality  between  some 
Southern  man  or  woman  and  danger.  Yet  the  South  does  not 
know,  except  as  a  kind  of  hearsay,  that  this  big  brained,  big 
souled  man  was  a  friend,  a  friend  at  court,  when  friends  were 
most  in  need,  having  the  will  and  the  power  to  rescue  it  from  the 
wolves  of  brutality  and  rapine  whom  the  history  of  all  wars  tells 
us  the  lust  of  victory,  the  very  smell  of  battle,  lures  from  their 
hiding  to  prey  upon  the  helpless,  the  dying  and  the  dead.  But, 
pursuing  the  after  story  of  those  dread  days,  Jefferson  Davis 
knew  this  and  died  doing  full  justice  to  the  character  of  Abra¬ 
ham  Lincoln. 

‘  ‘  Indeed,  payment  for  the  slaves  had  been  all  along  in  Lincoln ’s 
mind.  He  believed  the  North  equally  guilty  with  the  South  for 
the  original  existence  of  slavery.  He  was  a  just  man,  abhorring 
proscription;  an  old  conscience  Whig,  indeed,  who  stood  in  awe 
of  the  Constitution  and  his  oath  of  office.  He  wanted  to  leave 
the  South  no  right  to  claim  that  the  North,  finding  slave  labor 
unremunerative,  had  sold  its  negroes  to  the  South  and  then  turned 
about  and  by  force  of  arms  confiscated  what  it  had  unloaded  at 
a,  profit.  He  fully  recognized  slaves  as  property.  The  proclama¬ 
tion  of  emancipation  was  issued  as  a  war  measure.  In  his  mes¬ 
sage  to  Congress  of  December,  1862,  he  proposed  payment  for 
the  slaves,  elaborating  a  scheme  in  detail  and  urging  it  with  co¬ 
pious  and  cogent  argument.  ‘The  people  of  the  South,’  said  he, 
addressing  a  war  Congress  at  that  moment  in  the  throes  of  a 
bloody  war  with  the  South,  ‘are  not  more  responsible  for  the 
original  introduction  of  this  property  than  are  the  people  of  the 
North,  and  when  it  is  remembered  how  unhesitatingly  we  all  use 
cotton  and  sugar  and  share  the  profits  of  dealing  in  them,  it  may 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  213 


not  be  quite  safe  to  say  that  the  South  has  been  more  respon¬ 
sible  than  the  North  for  its  continuance.  ’ 

“The  years  are  gliding  swiftly  by.  Only  a  little  while,  and 
there  shall  not  be  one  man  living  who  saw  service  on  either  side 
of  that  great  struggle  of  systems  and  ideas.  Its  passions  long 
ago  vanished  from  manly  bosoms.  That  has  come  to  pass  within 
a  single  generation  in  America  which  in  Europe  required  ages  to 
accomplish.  There  is  no  disputing  the  verdict  of  events.  Let 
us  relate  them  truly  and  interpret  them  fairly.  If  we  would  have 
the  North  do  justice  to  our  heroes  we  must  do  justice  to  its 
heroes.  1  here  render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar’s 
even  as  I  would  render  unto  God  the  things  that  are  God’s. 
As  living  men,  standing  erect  in  the  presence  of  Heav¬ 
en  and  the  world,  we  have  grown  gray  without  being 
ashamed;  and  we  need  not  fear  that  history  will  fail  to 
vindicate  our  integrity.  When  those  are  gone  that  fought  the 
battle  and  posterity  comes  to  strike  the  final  balance  sheet,  it  will 
be  shown  that  the  makers  of  the  constitution  left  the  relation  of 
the  States  to  the  federal  government  and  of  the  federal  govern¬ 
ment  to  the  States  open  to  a  double  construction.  It  will  be  told 
how  the  mistaken  notion  that  slave  labor  was  requisite  to  the 
profitable  cultivation  of  sugar,  rice  and  cotton  raised  a  para¬ 
mount  property  interest  in  the  southern  section  of  the  Union, 
whilst  in  the  northern  section,  responding  to  the  trend  of  modern 
thought  and  the  outer  movements  of  mankind,  there  arose  a  great 
moral  sentiment  against  slavery.  The  conflict  thus  established, 
gradually  but  surely  sectionalizing  party  lines,  was  as  inevitable 
as  it  was  irrepressible.  It  was  fought  out  to  its  bitter  and  logi¬ 
cal  conclusion  at  Appomattox.  It  found  us  a  huddle  of  petty 
sovereignties,  held  together  by  a  rope  of  sand.  It  made  and  it 
left  us  a  nation.  Esto  perpetua !  ’  ’ 

It  was  in  the  light  of  this  known  history,  it  was 
because  he  clearly  understood  Lincoln,  as  he  also 
understood  Jefferson  and  Jackson,  that  Dr.  John 
Fiske  wrote  this : 

“  It  is  a  pity  that  great  political  questions  could  not  more  often 
be  argued  in  an  atmosphere  of  sweetness  and  light.  Their  solu¬ 
tion  would  exhibit  a  kind  and  degree  of  sense  such  as  the  world 
is  not  yet  familiar  with.  Suppose  that  in  1860  the  Americans, 


214 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


north  and  south,  could  have  discussed  the  whole  slavery  question 
without  passion;  and  suppose  that  all  the  slaves  had  been  set 
free,  and  their  owners  compensated  at  their  full  market  value; 
how  small  would  have  been  the  cost  in  dollars  and  cents  com¬ 
pared  with  the  cost  of  the  Civil  War,  to  say  nothing  of  the  saving 
of  life!  Such  a  supposition  seems  grotesque,  so  great  is  the  dif¬ 
ference,  in  respect  of  foresight  and  self-control,  between  the 
human  nature  implied  in  it  and  that  with  which  we  are  familiar. 
It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  slow  modifications  wrought  by  civilized 
life  will  by  and  by  bring  mankind  to  that  stage  of  wisdom  which 
now  seems  unattainable;  but  for  many  a  weary  year  no  doubt 
will  still  be  seen  the  same  old  groping  and  stumbling,  the  same 
old  self-defeating  selfishness” 

This  is  noble  teaching— the  kind  of  teaching 
which  is  slowly  but  surely  redeeming  the  world. 
But,  meanwhile,  so  long  as  man  is  brutish,  so  long 
as  we  must  deal  with 4  ‘  self-defeating  selfishness, ’  ’ 
and  so  long  as  greed  is  the  gospel  which  dominates 
the  lives  of  public  men,  and  especially  of  public 
“benefactors”— the  “sweetness  and  light”  in 
which  I  put  my  trust  is  of  the  kind  that  George 
Washington,  Andrew  Jackson  and  Ulysses  S. 
Grant  practiced  with  heroic  skill ! 

Had  either  man  been  in  the  White  House  in 
1860,  there  would  have  been  no  war ! 

And  today  we  are  exempt  from  all  thought  or 
fear  of  Civil  War,  solely  because  these  three  men 
have  successively  taught  American  freemen  pre¬ 
cisely  how  to  prevent  it!  For  to  preserve  order 
is  the  first  function  of  government;  and  without 
our  embattled  farmers  and  patriot  soldiers,  with¬ 
out  the  lasting  lessons  which  Washington  and 
Jackson  taught  the  British,  and  which  Grant  had 
to  teach  our  fathers,  we  can  picture  how  quickly 
Wall  Street  “Captains  of  Finance”  would  now 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  215 

make  short  shrift  of  attempting  to  supplant 
American  institutions  with  aristocratic  rule — 
with  the  “strong  government’ ’  which  Alexander 
Hamilton  labored  so  earnestly  to  fasten  upon  us. 

1 1  Our  government  is  the  most  expensive,  most  complicated, 
cumbrous,  and  limited  *  *  *  *  Other  republics,  long  since 

passed  away,  have  lasted  as  long  as  we,  and  borne  for  their  time 
as  great  a  sway  in  the  world  '  *  *  *  * '  while  those  of 

the  monarchies  and  despotisms  count  by  thousands  (of  years.) 

— Whitelaw  Reid,  in  1902. 

1  ‘  The  aristocracy  of  our  moneyed  corporations  dare  already  to 
challenge  our  Government  to  trial,  and  bid  defiance  to  the  laws 
of  our  country. 7  '  -Thomas  J efferson,  in  1816. 

As  the  son  of  a  soldier  who  fought  under  Grant, 
I  am  among  those— too  few  in  numbers  nowadays 
—who  flatly  and  frankly  hold  that  the  Civil  War, 
with  all  its  unspeakable  horrors,  was  needless.  It 
was  conceived  in  ‘  ‘  self-defeating  selfishness ; .  it 
was  born  of  ring  rule  and  rank  political  injustice ; 
and  it  was  the  awful  penalty  that  we  paid,  first, 
for  the  crime  of  Slavery,  and,  next,  for  its  coun¬ 
terpart  in  crime,  the  policy  of  Protection  to  en¬ 
rich  the  few,  at  the  direct  and  burdensome  ex¬ 
pense  of  the  many !  For  from  the  very  birth  of 
the  Nation  to  this  hour,  Slavery  and  Protection 
have  been  the  twin  evils— the  twin  legacies  of 
British  misrule— which  have  cursed  us  with  their 
pocket-interest  teaching,  as  I  shall  now  prove  by 
citations  from  forgotten  history  which  can  admit 
of  no  question. 

The  first  act  of  Thomas  Jefferson’s  public  life, 
when  he  was  elected  to  the  Virginia  Legislature  in 
1769  as  a  young  man  of  twenty-six,  was  to  pre¬ 
pare  and  second  a  bill  “for  the  permission  of  the 


216 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


Emancipation  of  slaves.’ ’  Six  years  later  when 
he  was  commissioned  by  the  Continental  Congress 
to  pen  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  this  is  a 
now-forgotten  paragraph  which  the  Congress 
struck  out,  but  which  still  stands  in  the  original 
draft  in  Jefferson’s  familiar  handwriting: 

He  (George  III)  has  waged  cruel  war  against  human  nature 
itself,  violating  its  most  sacred  rights  of  life  and  liberty  in  the 
persons  of  a  distant  people  who  never  offended  him,  captivating 
and  carrying  them  into  slavery  in  another  hemisphere,  or  to  incur 
miserable  death  in  their  transportation  thither.  This  piratical 
warfare,  the  opprobrium  of  infidel  powers,  is  the  warfare  of  the 
Christian  King  of  Great  Britain.  Determined  to  keep  open  a 
market  where  men  should  be  bought  and  sold,  he  has  prostituted 
his  negative,  suppressing  every  legislative  attempt  to  prohibit 
or  to  restrain  this  execrable  commerce.  And  that  this  assem¬ 
blage  of  horrors  might  want  no  fact  of  distinguished  dye,  he  is 
now  exciting  those  very  people  to  rise  in  arms  among  us,  and  to 
purchase  that  liberty  of  which  he  has  deprived  them,  by  murder¬ 
ing  the  people  on  whom  he  also  obtruded  them:  thus  paying  off 
former  crimes  committed  against  the  liberties  of  one  people  with 
crimes  which  he  urges  them  to  commit  against  the  lives  of  an¬ 
other. 

So  in  1784,  when  he  penned  the  original  Ordin- 
*  ance  for  the  government  and  homestead  settle¬ 
ment  of  our  vast  public  domain— now  an  empire 
in  extent,  in  population,  in  wealth,  and  in  power 
—these  were  the  words  Jefferson  incorporated, 
and  which  still  stand : 

“  There  shall  be  neither  slavery  nor  involun¬ 
tary  servitude  in  the  said  territory.  ” 

And  after  a  long  life-time  spent  in  advocacy  of 
these  sentiments,  after  all  earthly  honors  had  been 
heaped  upon  him  in  reward  for  his  priceless  serv¬ 
ices  to  mankind,  in  1820  Jefferson  wrote  this : 

“This  momentous  question,  like  a  fire-bell  in  the  night,  awak¬ 
ened  and  filled  me  with  terror.  I  considered  it  at  once  as  the 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  217 


knell  of  the  Union.  It  is  hushed  indeed  for  the  moment.  But 
this  is  a  reprieve  only,  not  a  final  sentence.  A  geographical  line, 
coinciding  with  a  marked  principle,  moral  and  political,  once  con¬ 
ceived  and  held  up  to  the  angry  passions  of  men,  will  never  be 
obliterated;  and  every  new  irritation  will  mark  it  deeper  and 
deeper.  I  can  say,  with  conscious  truth,  that  there  is  not  a  man 
on  earth  who  would  sacrifice  more  than  I  would  to  relieve  us  from 
this  heavy  reproach,  in  any  practicable  way.  The  cession  of  that 
kind  of  property,  for  so  it  is  misnamed,  is  a  bagatelle  which 
would  not  cost  me  a  second  thought,  if,  in  that  way,  a  general 
emancipation  and  expatriation  could  be  effected;  and,  gradually, 
and  with  due  sacrifices,  1  think  it  might  be.  But  as  it  is,  we  have 
the  wolf  by  the  ears,  and  we  can  neither  hold  him,  nor  safely  let 
him  go.  Justice  is  in  one  scale,  and  self-preservation  in  the 
other.  ’ 1 

These  were  the  sentiments  which  dominated  the 
thought  and  purpose  of  every  great  Southern 
statesman  who  distinguished  himself  in  the  con¬ 
structive  work  of  framing  American  institutions 
— the  sentiments  which  ennobled  the  lives  and  in¬ 
spired  the  hopes  of  thousands  of  cultivated  fami¬ 
lies  throughout  the  entire  South,  as  the  history  of 
the  period  makes  perfectly  clear.  One  needs  but 
to  turn  to  the  proud  record  of  Colonial  and  revo¬ 
lutionary  Virginia  to  see  that  her  representative 
statesmen  did  everything  that  mortal  men  could 
do  to  abate  the  evils,  to  prevent  the  increase,  and 
to  prepare  the  way  for  the  abolition  of  slavery. 
And  it  is  in  the  records  of  the  Constitutional  Con¬ 
vention  of  1787  that  we  shall  now  see  how  these 
efforts  were  frustrated  by  a  “guilty  bargain,” 
struck  between  Northern  men  intent  upon  Protec¬ 
tion  legislation  and  Southern  men  intent  upon 
perpetuating  and  extending  slavery.  For  it  was 
in  the  Constitutional  Convention  that  the  Repub¬ 
lican  and  Democratic  parties  as  they  exist  today 


218 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


had  their  beginnings ;  it  was  there  that  the  North 
and  the  South  were  arrayed  in  needless  sectional 
antagonism ;  and  it  was  there  that  we  see  George 
Mason  winning  immortality  as  the  resplendent 
champion  of  liberty  and  Union  under  “govern¬ 
ment  by  the  people and  resolutely  opposed  to 
him  was  Gouverneur  Morris,  the  able  and  too-re- 
sourceful  leader  of  the  party  of  aristocratic  rule 
and  legislative  privilege. 

Bising  in  that  Convention  to  protest  against  the 
proposal  to  permit  Georgia  and  South  Carolina 
alone  to  import  slaves  for  a  period  of  twenty 
years,  until  1808,  Mason  said : 

“  This  infernal  traffic  originated  in  the  avarice  of  British  mer¬ 
chants.  The  British  Government  constantly  checked  the  at¬ 
tempts  of  Virginia  to  put  a  stop  to  it.  The  present  question 
concerns  not  the  importing  States  alone,  but  the  whole  Union. 
The  evil  of  having  slaves  was  experienced  during  the  late  war. 
Had  slaves  been  treated  as  they  might  have  been  by  the  enemy, 
they  would  have  proved  dangerous  instruments  in  their  hands. 
But  their  folly  dealt  by  the  slaves  as  it  did  by  the  Tories. 
He  mentioned  the  dangerous  insurrection  of  the  slaves  in  Greece 
and  Sicily ;  and  the  instructions  given  by  Cromwell  to  the  com¬ 
missioners  sent  to  Virginia,  to  arm  the  servants  and  slaves  in 
case  other  means  of  obtaining  its  submission  should  fail. 
Maryland  and  Virginia,  he  said,  had  already  prohibited  the 
importation  of  slaves  expressly — North  Carolina  had  done  the 
same  in  substance.  All  this  would  be  vain,  if  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia  be  at  liberty  to  import.  The  Western  people  are  al¬ 
ready  calling  out  for  slaves  for  their  new  lands;  and  will  fill  that 
country  with  slaves,  if  they  can  be  got  through  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia.  Slavery  discourages  arts  and  manufactures.  The 
poor  despise  labor  when  performed  by  slaves.  They  prevent  the 
emigration  of  the  whites,  who  really  enrich  and  strengthen  a 
country.  They  produce  the  most  pernicious  effect  on  manners. 
Every  master  of  slaves  is  born  a  petty  tyrant.  They  bring  the 
judgement  of  heaven  on  a  country.  As  nations  cannot  he  reward- 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  219 

ed  or  punished  in  the  next  world,  they  must  he  in  this.  By  an 
inevitable  chain  of  causes  and  effects,  Providence  punishes  na¬ 
tional  sins  by  national  calamities.  He  lamented  that  some  of  our 
Eastern  brethren  had,  from  a  lust  of  gain,  embarked  in  this  ne¬ 
farious  traffic.  As  to  the  States  being  in  possession  of  the  right 
to  import,  this  was  the  case  with  many  other  rights,  now  to  be 
properly  given  up.  He  held  it  essential  in  every  point  of  view, 
that  the  general  government  should  have  power  to  prevent  the 
increase  of  slavery. 1 J 

Gouverneur  Morris,  seconding  the  proposal 
that  the  whole  subject,  including  navigation  laws 
and  export  and  import  taxes,  be  referred  to  a 
committee,  said:  “These  things  may  form  a  bar¬ 
gain  among  the  Northern  and  Southern  States.”* 
The  committee  was  duly  appointed;  it  was  com¬ 
posed  of  one  member  from  each  state;  Madison, 
instead  of  Mason,  was  selected  to  represent  Vir¬ 
ginia;  and  it  was  this  committee  which  struck  a 
pocket-interest  bargain— the  most  infamous  and 
awful  in  all  American  history,  as  we  shall  soon 
see ! 

Early  in  the  Convention  it  had  developed  that  a 
majority  of  the  Northern  delegates  were  strongly 
in  favor  of  Protection  legislation,  for  the  benefit 
of  their  shipping  and  manufacturing  interests; 
while  a  minority  of  the  Southern  delegates  insist¬ 
ed  upon  the  right  to  continue  the  importation  of 
slaves.  It  was  soon  agreed,  however,  that  a  two- 
thirds  vote  of  both  Houses  of  Congress  should  be 
prescribed  for  the  passage  of  commercial  and 
navigation  laws— thus  necessitating  the  assent  of 
at  least  some  of  the  Southern  states  in  all  tariff 
legislation ;  and  it  was  further  agreed  that  the  im¬ 
portation  of  slaves  should  be  regulated  by  Con- 


•Madison’s  Journal  of  the  Constitutional  Convention,  page  583. 


220 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


gress— which  was  in  effect  a  prohibition  of  the 
sinful  traffic,  since  an  overwhelming  majority  of 
the  people,  South  as  well  as  North,  desired  to  end 
the  horrors  of  the  African  slave  trade,  and  thus 
check  unnatural  increase  in  the  number  of  the 
slaves.  These  early  decisions  stood  for  three 
months— throughout  the  greater  part  of  the  entire 
session  of  the  Convention.  Towards  the  close  of 
the  great  work,  however,  it  was  Mr.  Morris  and 
the  carefully  selected  committee  who  struck  this 
bargain :  that  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  alone 
should  have  the  right  to  import  slaves  for  twenty 
years,  until  1808,  in  return  for  which  their  votes 
in  the  Convention  were  to  be  cast  in  favor  of  a 
simple  majority  vote  in  Congress  to  pass  all  tar¬ 
iff  and  navigation  laws. 

When  the  report  of  this  committee  came  up  for 
debate  Pinckney,  of  South  Carolina,  offered  the 
following  resolution  in  opposition: 

“That  no  act  of  the  legislature  for  the  purpose  of  regulating 
the  commerce  of  the  United  States  with  foreign  powers,  among 
the  several  states,  shall  be  passed  without  the  assent  of  two- 
thirds  OF  THE  MEMBERS  OF  EACH  HOUSE.” 

Speaking  directly  to  this  question  George  Ma¬ 
son  said : 

“  If  the  government  is  to  be  lasting,  it  must  be  founded  in  the 
confidence  and  affections  of  the  people;  and  must  be  so  con¬ 
structed  as  to  obtain  these.  The  majority  will  be  governed  by 
their  interests.  The  Southern  States  are  the  minority  in  both 
Houses.  Is  it  to  be  expected  that  they  will  deliver  themselves 
bound,  hand  and  foot,  to  the  Eastern  States,  and  enable  them  to 
exclaim,  in  the  words  of  Cromwell,  on  a  certain  occasion — ‘the 
Lord  hath  delivered  them  into  our  hands  V  77 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  221 

In  reply,  Morris  made  this  speech — of  awful 
omen— and  the  record  comes  down  to  us  in  Madi¬ 
son’s  Journal,  page  627: 

* c  Gouverneur  Morris  opposed  the  object  of  the  motion  as  high¬ 
ly  injurious.  Preferences  to  American  ships  will  multiply  them, 
till  they  carry  the  Southern  produce  cheaper  than  it  is  now  car¬ 
ried.  A  navy  was  essential  to  security,  particularly  of  the 
Southern  States;  and  can  only  be  had  by  a  navigation  act  en¬ 
couraging  American  bottoms  and  seamen.  In  those  points  of 
view,  then,  alone,  it  is  the  interest  of  the  Southern  States  that 
Navigation  Acts  should  be  facilitated.  Shipping,  he  said,  was  the 
worst  and  most  precarious  kind  of  property,  and  stood  in  need 
of  public  patronage.” 

Thus  we  seen  the  identical  logic  which  was  late¬ 
ly  employed  in  the  United  States  Senate  in  the  ef¬ 
fort  to  force  through  Congress  a  ship  subsidy  bill 
—for  the  special  benefit  of  the  shipping  combine! 

Morris  reasoned  precisely  as  the  Tory  statesmen 
of  Britain  then  reasoned— simply  borrowed  the 
logic  which  afflicted  the  British  people  for  genera¬ 
tions  with  all  the  enormities  of  Tory  Protection 
and  Tory  navigation  acts.  Adam  Smith,  “the 
father  of  political  economy,  ’  ’  declared  that  such 
legislation  was  ‘  ‘  a  manifest  violation  of  the  rights 
of  mankind  ;”  and  all  the  world  now  knows  that 
it  was  the  repeal  of  her  navigation  laws  and  her 
stupid  Protection  legislation,  that  enabled  “Bri¬ 
tannia  to  rule  the  waves  ’  ’  and  made  her  the  richest 
and  most  powerful  nation  of  all  Europe.  But  to 
resume  our  Convention  story : 

In  1788  Luther  Martin,  one  of  the  delegates 
from  Maryland,  gave  this  account  of  the  efforts 
made  by  himself,  Elbridge  Gerry  of  Massachu¬ 
setts,  and  others  who  were  co-operating  with  Ma¬ 
son  in  the  effort  to  undo  the  “bargain:” 


222 


J  EPPERSON IAN  DEMOCRACY. 


“Some  time  in  the  month  of  August  (1787),  a  number  of 
members  who  considered  the  system,  as  then  under  consideration 
and  likely  to  be  adopted,  extremely  exceptionable,  and  of  a  ten¬ 
dency  to  destroy  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  United  States— 
thought  it  advisable  to  meet  together  in  the  evenings,  in  order 
to  have  a  communication  of  sentiments,  and  to  concert  a  plan  of 
conventional  opposition  to,  and  amendment  of,  that  system,  so 
as,  if  possible,  to  render  it  less  dangerous.  Mr.  Gerry  was  the 
lirst  who  proposed  this  measure  to  me,  and  that  before  any  meet¬ 
ing  had  taken  place,  and  wished  we  might  assemble  at  my  lodg¬ 
ings;  but  not  having  a  room  convenient  we  fixed  upon  another 
place.  There  Mr.  Gerry  and  Mr.  Mason  did  hold  meetings;  but 
with  them  also  met  the  delegates  from  New  Jersey  and  Connec¬ 
ticut,  a  part  of  the  delegation  from  Delaware,  an  honorable  mem¬ 
ber  from  South  Carolina,  one  other  from  Georgia,  and  myself. 
Those  were  the  only  ‘  private  meetings  ’  that  ever  I  knew  or  heard 
to  be  held  by  Mr.  Gerry  and  Mr.  Mason— meetings  at  which  I 
myslf  attended  until  I  left  the  Convention — and  of  which  the 
sole  object  was  not  to  aggrandize  the  great  at  the  expense  of  the 
small ,  but  to  protect  and  preserve,  if  possible,  the  existence  and 
essential  rights  of  all  the  States,  and  the  liberty  and  freedom  of 
their  citizens.” 

In  the  course  of  his  Spartan  fight  in  the  Vir¬ 
ginia  convention  in  June,  1788,  called  to  adopt  the 
Constitution,  George  Mason  gave  this  brief  his¬ 
tory  of  the  bargain : 

1  ‘  1  giv©  y°u,  to  the  best  of  my  recollection,  the  history  of 
that  affair.  This  business  was  discussed  at  Philadelphia  for 
four  months,  during  which  time  the  subject  of  commerce  and 
navigation  was  often  under  consideration;  and  I  assert,  that 
eight  States  out  of  twelve,  for  more  than  three  months,  voted  for 
requiring  two-thirds  of  the  members  present  in  each  House  to 
pass  commercial  and  navigation  laws.  If  I  am  right,  there  was  a 
great  majority  for  requiring  two-thirds  of  the  States  in  this 
business,  till  a  compromise  took  place  between  the  Northern  and 
Southern  States;  the  Northern  States  agreeing  to  the  temporarv 
importation  of  slaves,  and  the  Southern  States  conceding,  in 
return,  that  navigation  and  commercial  laws  should  be  on  the 
footing  on  which  they  now  stand.  ’  ’ 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  223 

Patrick  Henry  stood  staunchly  beside  Mason 
throughout  the  Virginia  Convention,  leading  in 
most  of  the  debate;  and  it  is  to  that  matchless 
orator’s  genius  for  clear-cut  expression  that  we 
are  indebted  for  this  searching  insight  into  the 
heart’s  core  of  the  issue  at  stake: 

“This  government  subjects  everything  to  the  Northern  ma¬ 
jority.  Is  there  not  a  settled  purpose  to  check  the  Southern  inter¬ 
est?  We  thus  put  unbounded  power  over  our  property  in  hands 
not  having  a  common  interest  with  us.}  ’ 

Years  before,  when  George  the  Third  and  Lord 
North  were  plotting  and  planning  taxation 
schemes — precisely  as  Hamilton  and  Morris  then 
planned — in  that  historic  and  immortal  burst  of 
eloquence  which  fired  the  American  heart  to  ac¬ 
tion,  Henry  had  said  this : 

«  ‘  In  vain,  after  these  things,  may  we  indulge  the  fond  hope  of 
peace  and  reconciliation.  There  is  no  longer  any  room  for  hope. 
If  we  wish  to  be  free;  if  we  mean  to  preserve  inviolate  those 
inestimable  privileges  for  which  we  have  been  so  long  contend¬ 
ing;  if  we  mean  not  basely  to  abandon  the  noble  struggle  in 
which  we  have  been  so  long  engaged,  and  which  we  have  pledged 
ourselves  never  to  abandon  until  the  glorious  object  of  our  con¬ 
test  shall  be  obtained,— we  must  fight!  I  repeat  it,  sir,— we 
must  fight!  An  appeal  to  arms,  and  to  the  God  of  hosts,  is  all 

that  is  left  us. 1 1 

i  <  it  is  vain,  sir,  to  extenuate  the  matter.  Gentlemen  may  cry 
peace,  peace,  but  there  is  no  peace.  The  war  is  actually  begun. 
The  next  gale  that  sweeps  from  the  north  will  bring  to  our 
ears  the  clash  of  resounding  arms.  Our  brethren  are  already  in 
the  field.  Why  stand  we  here  idle?  What  is  it  that  gentlemen 
wish?  What  would  they  have?  Is  life  so  dear,  or  peace  so  sweet, 
as  to  be  purchased  at  the  price  of  chains  and  slavery?  Forbid 
it  Almighty  God!  I  know  not  what  course  others  may  take, 
but  as  for  me,  give  me  liberty,  or  give  me  death ! 


224 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


It  is  in  those  hashing  sentences  that  we  see  the 
spirit  of  liberty;  it  is  there  that  we  read  what 
Southern  freemen  thought  and  felt;  it  is  there 
that  we  see  how  and  why  the  fiery  Southern  lead¬ 
ers  were  able  to  inflame  the  whole  South  with  a 
sense  of  Northern  tyranny  and  studied  injustice. 
And  that  inspiring  speech,  vivid  in  the  memory  of 
every  school  boy  of  the  South,  explains  why 
Christian  soldiers  of  resplendent  type  freely  gave 
their  fortunes  and  their  lives  to  the  defense  of  a 
cause  which  they  deplored  and  resisted  at  the 
start,  but  in  the  end  held  dearer  than  all  else  that 
life  could  give. 

On  September  30th,  1792,  one  week  before  Ma¬ 
son’s  death,  Jefferson  visited  him  at  his  home, 
Gunston  Hall,  and  this  is  the  record  of  Mason’s 
conversation  as  given  in  Jefferson’s  Anas : 

‘  ‘  The  constitution  as  agreed  to  till  a  fortnight  before  the  Con¬ 
vention  rose,  was  such  a  one  as  he  would  have  set  his  hand  and 
heart  to.  1.  The  president  was  to  be  elected  for  seven  years, 
then  ineligible  for  seven  years  more.  2.  Rotation  in  the  Senate. 
3.  A  vote  of  two-thirds  on  particular  subjects,  and  expressly  on 
that  of  navigation.  Three  New  England  States  were  constantly 
with  us  on  all  questions,— Rhode  Island  not  there,  and  New  York 
seldom;  so  that  it  was  these  three  States,  with  the  five  Southern 
States,  against  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  and  Delaware. 

“With  respect  to  the  importation  of  slaves,  it  was  left  to  Con¬ 
gress.  This  disturbed  the  two  Southernmost  States,  who  knew 
that  Congress  would  immediately  suppress  the  importation  of 
slaves.  Those  two  States,  therefore,  struck  up  a  bargain  with 
the  three  New  England  States,  that  if  they  would  join  to  admit 
slaves  for  some  years,  the  two  Southernmost  States  would  join  in 
changing  the  clause  which  required  two-thirds  of  the  legislature 
in  any  vote.  It  was  done.  The  articles  were  changed  accordingly, 
and  from  that  moment  the  two  Southernmost  States  and  the  three 
Northern  ones  joined  Pennsylvania,  Jersey  and  Delaware,  and 
made  the  majority  of  eight  to  three  against  us,  instead  of 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  225 

eight  to  three  for  us,  as  it  had  been  through  the  whole  Conven¬ 
tion.  Under  this  coalition,  the  great  principles  of  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  were  changed  in  the  last  days  of  the  Convention. 

“He  (Mason)  said  he  considered  Hamilton  as  having  done  us 
more  injury  than  Great  Britain  and  all  her  fleets  and  armies.  ’ ' 

In  a  previous  chapter  we  have  seen  how  Hamil¬ 
ton  took  up  the  work  exactly  where  Morris  had 
left  it;  how  his  policies  quickly  re-formed  the  two 
parties  in  determined  opposition,  Jefferson  and 
Hamilton  now  taking  the  place  of  Mason  and 
Morris  as  leaders;  and  how  Jefferson  retired 
from  Washington’s  cabinet — only  to  he  elected  by 
the  people  as  Vice  President  in  1796,  when  John 
Adams  succeeded  Washington  as  President. 

In  1798  came  “the  moonstruck  madness  of  the 
Federalists”  which  all-but  forced  us  into  a  war 
against  France,  with  the  ulterior  hope  and  aim  of 
a  British  alliance;  and  which  gave  us  the  infam¬ 
ous  and  dangerous  Alien  and  Sedition  laws 
those  “palpable  and  alarming  infractions  of  the 
Constitution”  which  finally  startled  Hamilton 
into  writing  “Do  not  let  us  establish  a  tyranny.” 
Then  it  was  that  Jefferson  and  Madison  penned 
the  famous  Kentucky  and  Virginia  Besolutions 
those  telling  documents  which  met  perfidy  and  re¬ 
bellion  with  freemen’s  weapons  of  defense,  and 
which  ever  since  all  traitors  to  the  people’s  cause 
have  vainly  tried  to  misrepresent.  But  the  effort 
is  idle.  Those  resolutions  were  deliberately  writ¬ 
ten  to  expose  wrong-doing,  to  inform  the  people 
through  the  public  prints— to  save  the  Union. 
And  they  did  their  work!  For  as  the  record 
proves,  it  was  the  complete  triumph  of  Jefferson 
and  Madison  over  the  forces  of  aristocratic  rule 


226 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


and  legislative  tyranny  that  saved  the  Constitu¬ 
tion— that  gave  both  North  and  South  the  reality 
of  that  liberty,  Union,  and  security  in  property 
rights  for  which  the  patriot  fathers  had  battled  so 
long  and  so  bravely. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  the  anger  and  desperation 
of  defeat,  the  Federal  leaders  began  at  once  to 
plot  rebellion.  One  needs  but  turn  to  the  corre¬ 
spondence  of  Alexander  Hamilton  and  Gouver- 
neur  Morris  of  New  York,  and  the  letters  and 
speeches  of  Timothy  Pickering,  Fisher  Ames  and 
Josiah  Quincy  of  Massachusetts — in  short,  one 
needs  hut  turn  to  Appendix  XXIV,  and  page  362, 
Vol.  Ill,  of  Randall ’s  Life  of  Jefferson,  to  quickly 
catch  the  drift  of  all  the  shameful  work  that  was 
planning  and  doing  in  those  critical  years.  A 
very  few  quotations  will  answer  here : 

Under  date  of  March  27,  1798,  Hamilton  wrote 
Pickering  as  follows  :* 

“I  am  against  going  immediately  into  alliance  with  Great 
Britain.  It  is  my  opinion  that  her  interests  will  insure  us  her 
co-operation  to  the  extent  of  her  power,  and  that  a  treaty  will 
not  secure  her  further.  On  the  other  hand,  a  treaty  might  entan¬ 
gle  us.  Public  opinion  is  not  prepared  for  it.  It  would  not  fail 
to  be  represented  as  to  the  'point  to  which  our  previous  conduct 
was  directed;  and  in  case  of  offers  from  France,  satisfactory  to 
us,  the  public  faith  might  be  embarrassed  by  the  calls  of  the  peo¬ 
ple  for  accommodation  and  peace. 

“The  desideratum  is,  that  Britain  could  be  engaged  to  lodge 
with  her  minister  here ,  powers  commensurate  wdth  such  arrange¬ 
ments  as  exigencies  may  require,  and  the  progress  of  opinion  per¬ 
mit.  I  see  no  good  objection  on  her  part  to  this  plan. 

‘  ‘  It  would  be  good  policy  in  her  to  send  to  this  country  a  dozen 
frigates,  to  pursue  the  directions  of  this  government.  ’  ’ 

In  plain  English,  this  letter  meant,  do  not  let 


♦Hamilton’s  Works,  Vol.  VI,  page  278. 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  227 

us  form  an  open  alliance  with  Britain  now— be¬ 
cause  the  American  people  would  not  stand  it; 
but  let  us  instead  form  a  secret  alliance ;  and  then 
let  Britain  send  us  a  dozen  frigates  to  aid  in  the 
work  of  subduing  these  crazy  American  Jacobins 
and  democrats. 

On  page  323  of  Mr.  President  Roosevelt’s  bio¬ 
graphy  of  Gouverneur  Morris,  I  find  this  faithful 
record  of  the  political  situation  of  that  day : 

“The  parties  hated  each  other  with  rancorous  virulence;  the 
newspapers  teemed  with  the  foulest  abuse  of  public  men,  accu¬ 
sations  were  rife,  Washington  himself  not  being  spared,  and  the 
most  scurrilous  personalities  were  bandied  about  between  the 
different  editors.  The  Federalists  were  split  into  two  factions, 
one  following  the  President,  Adams,  in  his  efforts  to  keep  peace 
with  France,  if  it  could  be  done  with  honor,  while  the  others, 
under  Hamilton's  lead,  wished  war  at  once." 

Then  a  little  further  along,  on  page  329,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  gives  us  this  illuminating  piece  of  in¬ 
formation  as  to  Hamilton’s  inner  mind  and  meth¬ 
ods: 

“Hamilton,  stung  to  madness  by  the  defeat  (of  the  Federalists 
in  1800),  and  sincerely  believing  that  the  success  of  his  opponents 
would  be  fatal  to  fne  republic— for  the  two  parties  hated  each 
other  with  a  blind  fury  unknown  to  the  organizations  of  the 
present  day — actually  proposed  to  Jay,  the  Governor  (of  New 
York),  to  nullify  the  action  of  the  people  by  the  aid  of  the  old 
legislature,  a  Federalist  body,  which  was  still  holding  over,  al¬ 
though  the  members  of  its  successor  had  been  chosen.  Jay,  as 
pure  as  he  was  brave,  refused  to  sanction  any  such  scheme  of  un¬ 
worthy  partisanship. ;  1 

Turning  now  to  the  record  of  Gouverneur  Mor¬ 
ris,  Mr.  Roosevelt  shows  us  something  of  what  is 
at  work  in  his  oivn  mind  upon  the  subject  of  ma¬ 
jority  rule .  On  page  344,  Mr.  Roosevelt  says  of 
Morris : 


228 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


“He  denounced,  with  a  fierce  scorn  that  they  richly  deserve, 
the  despicable  demagogues  and  witless  fools  who  teach  that  in  all 
cases  the  voice  of  the  majority  must  be  implicitly  obeyed,  and 
that  public  men  have  only  to  carry  out  its  will  and  thus  1  acknowl¬ 
edge  themselves  the  willing  instruments  of  folly  and  vice.’  ” 

There  you  have  it,  straight  from  the  shoulder 
and  strenuously  put.  The  American  people  are 
not  competent  to  govern  themselves  by  majority 
rule.  They  require  4  ‘  statesmen,  ’ ’  drawn  from  the 
ranks  of  the  wealthy  and  “the  well-born, 77  to  rule 
for  them— to  enact  Protection  laws  contrary  to  the 
people’s  known  will,  and  to  personally  decide  just 
what  Publicity  we  shall  have  as  to  Protection 
finance.  A  majority  of  the  American  people  are 
not  to  be  trusted— they  may  be  guilty  of  “folly 
and  vice.  ’  ’  That  is  the  way  Mr.  Morris,  the  advo¬ 
cate  of  an  aristocratic  Senate,  reasoned  a  century 
ago  ;  and  we  plainly  see  that  it  is  the  way  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  the  biographer  and  President,  reasons 
today. 

After  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  retired  to  private  life,  it 
will  be  interesting  to  watch  the  development  of  his 
mind  upon  this  subject.  But  we  don’t  have  to 
wait  to  see  the  effects  of  that  philosophy  upon  Mr. 
Morris’  mind.  Here  is  what  Mr.  Roosevelt  says 
on  pages  347  and  349 : 

*  *  It  is  a  painful  thing  to  have  to  record  that  the  closing  act  in 
a  great  statesman’s  career  not  only  compares  ill  with  what  went 
before,  but  is  actually  to  the  last  degree  a  discreditable  and  un¬ 
worthy  performance.  ’ ’ 

“Morris’  bitterness  and  anger  against  the  government  (under 
Jefferson  and  Madison)  grew  apace;  and  finally  his  hatred  for 
the  administration  became  such,  that,  to  hurt  it  he  was  willing 
also  to  do  irreparable  harm  to  the  nation  itself.  He  violently 
opposed  the  various  embargo  acts,  and  all  the  other  governmental 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  229 


measures  of  the  decade  before  the  war;  and  worked  himself  up  to 
such  a  pitch,  when  hostilities  began,  that,  though  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  Constitution,  though  formerly  one  of  the  chief 
exponents  of  the  national  idea,  and  though  once  a  main  upholder 
of  the  Union,  he  abandoned  every  patriotic  principle  and  became 
an  ardent  advocate  of  Northern  secession.  ’  ’ 

“Yet,  grave  as  these  faults  (of  President  Madison’s  adminis¬ 
tration)  were,  they  were  mild  compared  to  those  committed  by 
Morris  and  the  other  ultra-Federalists  of  New  York  and  New 
England.  Morris’  opposition  to  the  war  led  him  to  the  most 
extravagant  lengths.  *  *  *  *  He  championed  the  British 

view  of  their  right  to  impress  seamen  from  our  ships;  he  ap¬ 
proved  peace  on  the  terms  they  offered,  which  included  a  curtail¬ 
ment  of  our  Western  frontier,  and  the  erection  along  it  of  inde¬ 
pendent  Indian  sovereignties  under  British  protection.  *  *  * 

*  He  actually  advocated  repudiating  our  war  debt,  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  void,  being  founded  on  a  moral  wrong.  ’  ’ 

Rule  or  ruin!  So  the  Federalists  reasoned 
from  1796  to  1815;  so  the  Nullifiers  reasoned 
from  1828  to  1882 ;  so  the  Slave-power  reasoned 
from  I860  to  1865 ;  so  the  Republicans  reason  to¬ 
day,  when  they  tell  us  that  we  shall  be  plunged 
into  panic  and  disaster  unless  their  lease  of  power 
be  renewed.  But  I  fancy  that  when  we  come  to 
count  the  ballots  in  the  next  Presidential  election, 
it  will  be  found  that  the  solid  sense  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  people  is  still  wedded  to  majority  rule— that 
the  danger  they  see  and  fear  is  not  a  majority  vote 
of  a  free  people,  but  the  corrupt  majority  vote  of 
those  in  Congress  who  betrayed  the  people’s  trust 
in  passing  the  McKinley  bill  and  the  Dingley  bill ; 
and  then  corruptly  passing  a  law  which  empowers 
Theodore  Roosevelt  to  personally  decide  what 
Publicity  we  shall  have,  or  not  have ,  as  to  Trust 
finance. 

“The  executive  power  in  our  government  is  not  the  only,  per- 


230  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

haps  not  even  the  principal  object  of  my  solicitude.  The  tyranny 
of  the  legislature  is  really  the  danger  most  to  be  feared,  and  will 
continue  to  be  so  for  many  years  to  come.  ’  ’ 

—  Thomas  Jefferson. 

But  let  us  get  back  to  the  story— let  us  go  on 
with  a  revelation  of  the  record  which  proves  that 
New  England  was  first  to  deliberately  plan  a  sep¬ 
aration  from  the  Union,  and  that  the  early  advo¬ 
cates  of  aristocratic  rule  and  Protection  legisla¬ 
tion  confidently  relied  upon  an  alliance  with  Eng¬ 
land  as  one  effective  means  of  breaking-up  the 
Union  and  defeating  the  hopes  and  aims  of  Amer- 
ican  democracy. 

John  Quincy  Adams  has  left  a  very  full  and  ac¬ 
curate  history  of  the  Hartford  Convention,  and 
Theodore  Dwight,  its  Secretary,  was  finally 
whipped  by  criticism  into  writing  a  ponderous 
volume  in  explanation  and  defense.  These  two 
books  can  doubtless  be  found  in  any  good  public 
library;  but  if  not,  let  me  suggest  that  young 
Americans  simply  look  for  4  4  Hartford  Conven¬ 
tion’  ’  in  the  card  index  or  the  standard  cyclo¬ 
pedias.  In  that  way  they  can  quickly  see  how  sec¬ 
tional  hate,  secession  teaching,  and  deliberate 
plans  for  rebellion  were  the  direct  results  of  the 
4 4 guilty  bargain”  struck  in  the  Constitutional 
Convention  of  1787. 

It  will  suffice  here  if  I  simply  record  the  fact 
that  Governor  Caleb  Strong  called  a  special  ses¬ 
sion  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  which  met 
in  Boston  October  5th,  1814,  and  two  days  later, 
by  a  vote  of  260  yeas  to  90  nays,  adopted  a  resolu¬ 
tion  proposing  the  Convention  and  appointing 
twelve  delegates  to  it.  Rhode  Island  immediately 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  231 


responded  with  the  appointment  of  four  dele¬ 
gates;  Connecticut  with  seven,  and  New  Hamp¬ 
shire  with  two.  The  Convention  met  at  Hartford ; 
it  was  in  formal  session  for  three  weeks ;  it  kept  a 
secret  journal;  it  specifically  recommended  steps 
leading  to  a  separation  from  the  Union  should 
Congress  refuse  to  comply  with  the  demands  of 
the  New  England  States ;  and  its  presiding  officer 
was  none  other  than  George  Cabot,  the  distin¬ 
guished  grandfather  of  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  the 
professional  Protectionist  who  shines  so  resplen- 
dently  in  the  United  States  Senate  today. 

And  now  we  shall  see  that  the  fruitful  seeds  of 
sectional  hate  and  open  rebellion  were  immediate¬ 
ly  carried  from  New  England  to  South  Carolina. 
For  it  was  none  other  than  Robert  Y.  Hayne,  of 
Nullification  fame,  who,  as  early  as  1816,  rising  in 
the  United  States  Senate,  had  this  to  say  of  what 
transpired  before  and  at  the  Hartford  Conven¬ 
tion  : 

“Let  us  contemplate,  for  a  moment,  the  spectacle  then  exhib¬ 
ited  to  the  view  of  the  world.  I  will  not  go  over  the  disasters  of 
the  war,  nor  describe  the  difficulties  in  which  the  government  was 
involved.  It  will  be  recollected  that  its  credit  was  nearly  gone, 
Washington  had  fallen,  the  whole  coast  was  blockaded,  and  an 
immense  force  collected  in  the  West  Indies  was  about  to  make  a 
descent,  which  it  was  supposed  we  had  no  means  of  resisting. 
In  this  awful  state  of  our  public  affairs,  when  the  government 
seemed  to  be  almost  tottering  on  its  base,  when  Great  Britain, 
relieved  from  all  her  other  enemies,  had  proclaimed  her  purpose 
of  ‘reducing  us  to  unconditional  submission’— we  beheld  the 
peace  party  in  New  England  pursuing  a  course  calculated  to  do 
more  injury  to  their  country  and  to  render  England  more  effect¬ 
ive  service  than  all  her  armies.  *  *  *  *  That  Convention 

met,  and  from  their  proceedings  it  appears  that  their  chief  object 
was  to  keep  back  the  men  and  money  of  New  England  from  the 


232 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


service  of  the  Union,  and  to  effect  radical  changes  in  the  govern¬ 
ment-changes  that  can  never  be  effected  without  a  dissolution 
of  the  Union.  ’ ’ 

An  effective  satire  appeared  anonymously  in 
the  North  at  the  time,  and  from  this  I  take  three 
verses : 


James  Madison  my  Jo,  Jim, 

We  wonder  what  you  mean, 

You've  disconcerted  all  our  plans, 

They  vanish  like  a  dream. 

You’ve  disconcerted  all  our  plots, 

And  this  the  world  will  know, 

Since  peace  has  come  we  are  undone, 

James  Madison,  my  Jo. 

We  swore  against  the  war,  Jim, 

’Twas  wicked  and  unjust, 

Tri’d  slander,  lies— with  British  spies, 

From  office  you  to  thrust, 

But  sad  to  state,  our  schemes  have  failed, 

All  vanished  like  the  snow, 

While  we  ’re  disrac ’d,  still  Jim  is  plac ’d 
In  Washington,  my  Jo. 

James  Madison  my  Jo,  Jim, 

We  all  of  us  relent, 

And  of  our  sins  and  treachery, 

Sincerely  do  repent; 

And  if  you’ll  now  receive  us,  Jim, 

The  world  it  soon  shall  know 
We  all  of  us  will  cease  to  curse 
James  Madison,  my  Jo. 

Now,  in  contrast  with  this  disunion  record  of 
those  who  believed  the  people  unfit  to  rule,  let  us 
observe  the  attitude  of  the  opposing  leaders.  El- 
bridge  Gerry  of  Massachusetts  was  the  one  man 
who  stood  true  to  Mason ’s  leadership  in  the  Con- 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  233 


vention  of  1787,  for,  like  Mason,  he  flatly  refused 
to  sign  the  Constitution  as  originally  adopted.  In 
that  immovable  resolution  these  two  men  gave 
their  names,  and  the  proud  record  of  their  work, 
to  immortal  history!  For  that  Convention  in 
Philadelphia  was  the  very  apex  of  liberty’s  age¬ 
long  struggle  for  federated  and  representative 
government  by  the  people ;  and  in  their  uncompro¬ 
mising  convictions,  in  their  marvellous  foresight 
into  the  future,  Mason  and  Gerry  had  the  courage 
to  separate  themselves  from  all  their  fellows— 
had  the  genius  to  prove  themselves  prophets 
among  men !  For  the  solemn  sense  of  conscious 
responsibility  which  prompted  their  heroic  action, 
is  handed  down  to  us  in  this  extract  from  a  letter 
which  Mason  wrote  to  his  eldest  son  and  name¬ 
sake,  under  date  of  June  1st,  1787 : 

“When  I  first  came  here,  judging  from  casual  conversations 
with  gentlemen  from  the  different  States,  I  was  very  apprehen¬ 
sive  that,  soured  and  disgusted  with  the  unexpected  evils  we  had 
experienced  from  the  democratic  principles  of  our  govern¬ 
ments,  we  should  be  apt  to  run  into  the  opposite  extreme,  and 
in  endeavoring  to  steer  too  far  from  Scylla,  we  might  be  drawn 
into  the  vortex  of  Charybdis,  of  which  I  still  think  there  is  some 
danger,  though  I  have  the  pleasure  to  find  in  the  convention 
many  men  of  fine  republican  principles.  America  has  certainly, 
upon  this  occasion,  drawn  forth  her  first  characters;  there  are 
upon  this  Convention  many  gentlemen  of  the  most  respectable 
abilities,  and  so  far  as  1  can  discover,  of  the  purest  intentions. 
The  eyes  of  the  United  States  are  turned  upon  this  assembly, 
and  their  expectations  raised  to  a  very  anxious  degree. 

1 1  May  God  grant  we  may  be  able  to  gratify  them,  by  establish¬ 
ing  a  wise  and  just  government.  For  my  own  part,  I  never  be¬ 
fore  felt  myself  in  such  a  situation;  and  declare  I  would  not, 
upon  pecuniary  motives,  serve  in  this  convention  for  a  thousand 
pounds  per  day.  The  revolt  from  Great  Britain  and  the  forma¬ 
tions  of  our  new  governments  at  that  time,  were  nothing  com- 


234 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


pared  to  the  great  business  now  before  us:  there  was  then  a 
certain  degree  of  enthusiasm,  which  inspired  and  supported  the 
mind;  but  to  view,  through  the  calm,  sedate  medium  of  reason 
the  influence  which  the  establishment  now  proposed  may  have, 
upon  the  happiness  or  misery  of  millions  yet  unborn,  is  an  object 
of  such  magnitude  as  absorbs,  and  in  a  manner  suspends,  the 
operations  of  the  human  understanding 

Elbridge  Gerry  bad  been  elected  Governor  of 
Massachusetts  in  1811,  and  in  his  inaugural  ad¬ 
dress  he  denounced  the  doctrines  of  the  rebellious 
Federalists  as  ‘  6  seditious.  ’  ’  But  the  Democratic 
State  legislature,  then  sitting  denounced  the  men 
as  “inceptive  traitors’ ’  and  “domestic  partisans 
of  a  foreign  power.”  Jefferson  was  in  retire¬ 
ment  at  Monticello,  watching  events  with  anxious 
care  as  the  danger  of  war  drew  close,  and  under 
date  of  June  11th,  1812,  he  wrote  Governor  Gerry 
this  letter  of  calm  and  wise  counsel : 

“What,  then,  does  this  English  faction  with  you  mean?  Their 
newspapers  say  rebellion,  and  that  they  will  not  remain  united 
with  us  unless  we  will  permit  them  to  govern  the  majority. 
If  thi3  be  their  purpose,  their  anti-republican  spirit,  it  ought  to 
be  met  at  once.  But  a  government  like  ours  should  be  slow  in 
believing  this,  should  put  forth  its  whole  might  when  necessary 
to  suppress  it,  and  promptly  return  to  the  paths  of  reconciliation. 
The  extent  of  our  country  secures  it,  I  hope,  from  the  vindictive 
passions  of  the  petty  incorporations  of  Greece.  *  *  *  * 

“But  I  trust  that  such  a  perverseness  will  not  be  that  of  the 
honest  and  well-meaning  mass  of  the  Federalists  of  Massachu¬ 
setts;  and  that  when  the  questions  of  separation  and  rebellion 
shall  be  nakedly  proposed  to  them,  the  Gores  and  the  Pickerings 
will  find  their  levees  crowded  with  silk-stocking  gentry,  but  no 
yeomanry;  an  army  of  officers  without  soldiers.  I  hope,  then,  all 
will  still  end  well;  the  Anglomen  will  consent  to  make  peace 
with  their  bread  and  butter,  and  you  and  I  shall  sink  to  rest, 

without  having  been  actors  or  spectators  in  another  civil  war. 
*  *  *  * 

“We  have  not  timed  these  things  well  together,  or  we  might 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  235 


have  begun  a  re-alliance  between  Massachusetts  and  the  Old  Do¬ 
minion,  faithful  companions  in  the  war  of  Independence,  pecu¬ 
liarly  tallied  to  interests,  by  each  wanting  exactly  what  the  other 
has  to  spare ;  and  estranged  to  each  other,  in  latter  times,  only  by 
the  practices  of  a  third  nation,  the  common  enemy  of  both.  Let 
us  live  only  to  see  this  re-union,  and  I  will  say  with  old  Simeon, 
‘Lord,  now  'lettest  thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  for  mine 
eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation. 7  In  that  peace  may  you  long  re¬ 
main,  my  friend,  and  depart  only  in  the  fullness  of  years,  all 
passed  in  health  and  prosperity.  God  bless  you. 7  7 

In  the  preceding  chapter  we  have  seen  how  An¬ 
drew  Jackson’s  genius  and  bravery  won  for  the 
people  the  second  great  victory  over  rebellion,  pa¬ 
ternalism,  Protection,  and  monopoly;  and  thus 
we  come  to  the  formative  era  which  gave  ns  Lin¬ 
coln  as  the  great  leader  of  the  party  of  freedom. 

Writing  of  the  period  which  led  up  to  the  form¬ 
ation  of  the  Republican  party,  Dr.  John  Fiske,  in 
his  essay  on  “Harrison,  Tyler  and  the  Whig  Co¬ 
alition”  says  what  follows ;  and  I  am  entirely  sure 
that  freemen,  who  are  not  too  busy  with  money¬ 
getting  to  read  and  think  for  their  children  and 
their  children’s  children,  will  profit  by  closely 
studying  its  every  word : 

“In  1844,  the  presidential  platform  of  the  Whigs  was 
careful  to  make  no  allusion  whatever  to  the  bank.  On  this 
crucial  question  the  doctrines  of  paternal  government  had  re¬ 
ceived  a  crushing  and  permanent  defeat.  In  the  next  session 
of  Congress  the  strife  with  the  President  (Tyler)  was 
renewed,  but  it  was  now  tariff,  not  bank,  that  furnished 
the  subject  of  discussion.  The  lowering  of  duties  by  the  com¬ 
promise  tariff  of  1833  had  now  diminished  the  revenue  until 
it  was  insufficient  to  meet  the  expenses  of  government.  The 
Whigs  accordingly  carried  through  Congress  a  bill  continuing  the 
protective  duties  of  1833,  and  providing  that  the  surplus  revenue, 
which  was  thus  sure  soon  to  accumulate,  should  be  distributed 
among  the  states.  But  the  compromise  act  of  1833,  in  which  Mr. 


236 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


Tyler  had  played  an  important  part,  had  provided  that  the  pro¬ 
tective  policy  should  come  to  an  end  in  1842.  Both  on  this 
ground,  and  "because  of  the  provisions  for  distributing  the  sur¬ 
plus,  the  President  vetoed  the  new  bill.  Congress  then  devised 
and  passed  another  bill,  providing  for  a  tariff  ‘ 1  for  revenue,  with 
incidental  protection, 7  7  but  still  contemplating  a  distribution  of 
the  surplus  if  there  should  be  any.  The  President  vetoed  this 
bill.  Congress  received  the  veto  message  with  indignation,  and 
on  the  motion  of  John  Quincy  Adams  it  was  referred  to  a  com¬ 
mittee,  which  condemned  it  as  an  unwarrantable  assumption  of 
power,  and  after  a  caustic  summary  of  Mr.  Tyler  7s  acts  since  hi3 
accession  to  office,  concluded  with  a  reference  to  impeachment. 
This  report  called  forth  from  the  President  a  formal  protest; 
but  the  victory  was  already  his.  The  Whigs  were  afraid  to  go 
before  the  country  in  the  autumn  elections  with  the  tariff  ques¬ 
tion  unsettled,  and  the  bill  was  accordingly  passed  by  both 
houses  without  the  distributing  clause,  and  was  at  once  signed  by 
the  President.  As  a  parting  menace,  the  distributing  clause  was 
then  passed  in  a  separate  bill,  but  a  1 1  pocket  veto 7  7  sufficed  to 
dispose  of  it.  Congress  adjourned  August  31,  1842,  and  in  the 
autumn  elections  the  Whig  majority  of  25  in  the  House  of  Bep- 
resentatives  gave  place  to  a  Democratic  majority  of  61. 

“Here  our  story  must  for  the  present  stop,  with  the  total 
overthrow  of  the  Whig  doctrines  of  paternal  government.  As 
the  net  result  of  twenty  years  of  political  experience, 
since  the  election  of  John  Quincy  Adams  had  raised  new  po¬ 
litical  issues,  we  find  the  Whig  theory  everywhere  discomfited. 
The  bank  was  too  completely  dead  to  find  any  mourners.  The 
protective  tariff  was  reduced  to  such  a  point  that  we  were  abreast 
With  England  in  the  march  toward  free  trade ,  and  our  foreign 
commerce  was  beginning  to  rival  that  of  England ,  when  the  Civil 
War  and  its  war  taxes  set  us  back  for  a  while.  At  the  same 
time  the  policy  of  internal  improvements  remained,  as  it  still 
remains,  on  the  defensive.  Viewed  in  its  large  relations,  it  was 
a  noble  victory  for  the  sound  Democratic  doctrine  of  “govern¬ 
ment  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people. 77 

“Between  J850  and  1860  many  of  the  best  and  most  vigorous 
elements  in  the  old  Democratic  party  of  Jackson  and  Van  Buren 
had  gone  over  to  the  new  Republican  party;  just  as  since  1876 
we  have  seen  many  of  the  most  characteristic  elements  of  the  old 
Republican  party  of  Lincoln  and  Sumner  going  over  to  the 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY. 


237 


Democrats.  Whatever  may  be  the  merits  of  the  Republican  party 
of  today,  it  is  no  more  the  party  of  Lincoln  and  Sumner  than  the 
Federalist  party  of  18 12  was  the  party  of  Hamilton  and  John 
Adams.  Just  so  with  the  Democratic  party  forty  years  ago. 
By  the  subtraction  of  its  original  leaders,  the  Democratic  party 
of  Pierce  and  Buchanan  came  to  be  something  quite  different 
from  the  Democratic  party  of  Jackson  and  Van  Buren.  It  came 
to  he  a  mere  servant  of  the  slave  power. 

“The  danger  which  menaces  the  Republican  party  today  is  the 
danger  that  it  may  fall  under  the  control  of  monopolists.  Should 
it  turn  out  to  be  so,  the  history  of  American  politics  points  to  the 
probable  result.  That  history  shows  with  clearness  how  moder¬ 
ately  the  evolution  of  society  goes  on  where  the  popular  will  finds 
unhampered  expression.  When  political  parties  go  in  guest  of 
strange  gods  we  cast  them  forth  into  outer  darkness,  and  go  on 
our  way  rejoicing.  It  is  well  that  this  is  so,  for  so  long  as  this 
can  be  done,  we  may  be  sure  that  we  are  a  free  people. ,  1 

Now  if  ambitious  young  men  of  this  day  will 
turn  to  any  one  of  the  excellent  political  almanacs 
issued  by  the  newspapers,  they  will  observe  that 
in  the  Presidential  contests  of  1844,  1848  and 
1852,  a  variety  of  candidates  were  presented  at 
each  election;  and  then  turning  to  the  names  of 
these  parties  and  candidates  in  any  standard  cy¬ 
clopedia  available  in  the  public  libraries,  they  can 
get,  within  an  hour  or  two  of  reading,  a  very  clear 
idea  of  the  differing  principles  for  which  these 
factions  were  contending.  I  strongly  recommend 
this  line  of  personal  inquiry,  instead  of  giving  the 
facts  here,  because  it  is  vitally  necessary  that 
young  Americans  now  begin  in  dead  earnest  to 
read  and  think  for  themselves.  We  live  under 
free  institutions.  We  live  under  absolute  rule  of 
the  majority  of  our  voters.  We  have  it  in  our 
power,  by  majority  vote  at  the  ballot  box,  not 
only  to  defeat  all  the  deep  schemes  of  the  Wall 


238  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

Street  millionaires,  but  to  render  public  men  pow¬ 
erless  and  contemptible  when  they  have  the  ef¬ 
frontery  to  advocate  legislation  for  the  benefit  of 
any  special  class ,  at  the  expense  of  the  whole  peo¬ 
ple.  And  such  reading  is  infinitely  important 
now,  for  in  the  contest  which  lies  dead  ahead  of  us 
there  will  be  pressing  need  for  young  men  of 
ardor,  enthusiasm,  and  conviction,  to  answer  cap¬ 
tious  criticism,  to  call  political  historians  to  ac¬ 
count,  and  to  do  the  active  work  that  will  be  wait¬ 
ing  in  every  voting  precinct  and  primary 
throughout  the  entire  Union. 

It  will  be  sufficient,  therefore,  if  I  simply  say 
here,  that  when  the  Presidential  election  of  1856 
approached,  all  the  anti-slavery  factions  coalesced 
in  the  national  Convention  at  Philadelphia  which 
nominated  for  President  General  John  C.  Fre¬ 
mont,  the  brave  soldier  and  explorer  who  con¬ 
quered  and  gave  us  California.  And  the  plat¬ 
form  of  principles  which  they  adopted  was,  word 
for  word,  exactly  what  follows : 

REPUBLICAN  PLATFORM. 

National  Convention  held  at  Philadelphia,  June  17,  1856. 

The  Convention  of  Delegates,  assembled  in  pursuance  of  a  call 
addressed  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  without  regard  to 
past  political  differences  or  divisions,  who  are  opposed  to  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  to  the  policy  of  the  present 
Administration,  to  the  extension  of  Slavery  into  Free  Territory; 
in  favor  of  admitting  Kansas  as  a  Free  State;  of  restoring  the 
action  of  the  Federal  Government  to  the  principles  of  Washing¬ 
ton  and  Jefferson,  and  who  purpose  to  unite  in  presenting  can¬ 
didates  for  the  offices  of  President  and  Vice-President,  do  resolve 
as  follows: 

Resolved,  That  the  maintenance  of  the  principles  promulgated 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  239 


in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  embodied  in  the  Federal 
Constitution  is  essential  to  the  preservation  of  our  republican 
institutions,  and  that  the  Federal  Constitution,  the  rights  of  the 
States,  and  Union  of  the  States,  shall  be  preserved. 

Resolved,  That  with  our  Republican  fathers  we  hold  it  to  be  a 
self-evident  truth,  that  all  men  are  endowed  with  the  inalienable 
rights  to  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  and  that  the 
primary  object  and  ulterior  designs  of  our  federal  government 
were,  to  secure  these  rights  to  all  persons  within  its  exclusive 
jurisdiction;  that,  as  our  republican  fathers,  when  they  had  abol¬ 
ished  slavery  in  all  our  national  territory,  ordained  that  no  per¬ 
son  should  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty  or  property  without  due 
process  of  law,  it  becomes  our  duty  to  maintain  this  provision  of 
the  Constitution  against  all  attempts  to  violate  it  for  the  purpose 
of  establishing  slavery  in  any  territory  of  the  United  States,  by 
positive  legislation,  prohibiting  the  existence  or  extension  therein. 
That  we  deny  the  authority  of  Congress,  of  a  territorial  legisla¬ 
ture,  of  any  individual  or  association  of  individuals  to  give  legal 
existence  to  slavery  in  any  territory  of  the  United  States,  while 
the  present  Constitution  shall  be  maintained. 

Resolved,  That  the  Constitution  confers  upon  Congress  sove¬ 
reign  power  over  the  territories  of  the  United  States  for  their 
government,  and  that  in  the  exercise  of  this  power  it  is  both  the 
right  and  the  duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit  in  the  territories  those 
twin  relics  of  barbarism — polygamy  and  slavery. 

Resolved,  That  while  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was 
ordained  and  established  by  the  people  in  order  to  form  a  more 
perfect  Union,  establish  justice,  insure  domestic  tranquility,  pro¬ 
vide  for  the  common  defense,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty, 
and  contains  ample  provisions  for  the  protection  of  the  life,  liber¬ 
ty  and  property  of  every  citizen,  the  dearest  constitutional  rights 
of  the  people  of  Kansas  have  been  fraudulently  and  violently 
taken  from  them — their  territory  has  been  invaded  by  an  armed 
force— spurious  and  pretended  legislative,  judicial  and  executive 
officers  have  been  set  over  them,  by  whose  usurped  authority,  sus¬ 
tained  by  the  military  power  of  the  Government,  tyrannical  and 
unconstitutional  laws  have  been  enacted  and  enforced— the  rights 
of  the  people  to  keep  and  bear  arms  have  been  infringed— test 
oaths  of  an  extraordinary  and  entangling  nature  have  been  im¬ 
posed,  as  a  condition  of  exercising  the  right  of  suffrage  and 
holding  office — the  right  of  an  accused  person  to  a  speedy  and 


240 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


public  trial  by  an  impartial  jury  has  been  denied — the  right  of 
the  people  to  be  secure  in  their  persons,  houses,  papers  and  effects 
against  unreasonable  searches  and  seizures  has  been  violated 
they  have  been  deprived  of  life,  liberty  and  property  without 
due  course  of  law— that  the  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  pres3 
has  been  abridged — the  right  to  choose  their  representatives  has 
been  made  of  no  effect— murders,  robberies  and  arsons  have  been 
instigated  and  encouraged,  and  the  offenders  have  been  al¬ 
lowed  to  go  unpunished — that  all  these  things  have  been  done 
with  the  knowledge,  sanction  and  procurement  of  the  present  ad¬ 
ministration,  and  that  for  this  high  crime  against  the  Constitu¬ 
tion,  the  Union  and  Humanity,  we  arraign  the  Administration, 
the  President,  his  advisers,  agents,  supporters,  apologists  and  ac¬ 
cessories,  either  before  or  after  the  facts,  before  the  country  and 
before  the  world,  and  that  it  is  our  fixed  purpose  to  bring  the 
actual  perpetrators  of  these  atrocious  outrages,  and  their  accom¬ 
plices,  to  a  sure  and  condign  punishment  hereafter. 

Resolved,  That  Kansas  should  be  immediately  admitted  as  a 
State  of  the  Union,  with  her  present  free  Constitution,  as  at 
once  the  most  effectual  way  of  securing  her  citizens  the  enjoy¬ 
ment  of  the  rights  and  privileges  to  which  they  are  entitled,  and 
of  ending  the  civil  strife  now  raging  in  her  territory. 

Resolved,  That  the  highwaymen’s  plea,  that  “might  makes 
right,”  embodied  in  the  Ostend  Circular,  was  in  every  respect 
unworthy  of  American  diplomacy,  and  would  bring  shame  and 
dishonor  upon  any  government  or  people  that  gave  it  their  sanc¬ 
tion. 

Resolved,  That  a  railroad  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  by  the  most 
central  and  practicable  route,  is  imperatively  demanded  by  the 
interests  of  the  whole  country,  and  that  the  Federal  Government 
ought  to  render  immediate  and  efficient  aid  in  its  construction, 
and,  as  an  auxiliary  thereto,  the  immediate  construction  of  an 
emigrant  route  on  the  line  of  the  railroad. 

Resolved,  That  appropriations  by  Congress  for  the  improvement 
of  rivers  and  harbors,  of  a  national  character,  required  for  the 
accommodation  and  security  of  our  existing  commerce,  are  au¬ 
thorized  by  the  Constitution,  and  justified  by  the  obligation  of 
government  to  protect  the  lives  and  property  of  its  citizens. 

Resolved,  That  we  invite  the  affiliation  and  co-operation  of 
freemen  of  all  parties,  in  support  of  the  principles  herein  de¬ 
clared;  and,  believing  that  the  spirit  of  our  institutions,  as  well 


I 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  241 


as  the  Constitution  of  our  country,  guarantee  liberty  of  con¬ 
science  and  equality  of  rights  among  citizens,  we  oppose  all  legis¬ 
lation  impairing  security. 

There  we  see  the  true  principles  of  the  Republi¬ 
can  party !  There  we  see  the  declaration  of  free¬ 
men  who  knew  what  they  wanted,  who  said  what 
they  thought,  and  who  meant  exactly  what  they 
said.  And  for  us  of  this  generation,  the  point  of 
superlative  importance  is  to  observe  that  not  one 
ivord  was  said  in  advocacy  of  Protection.  For 
when  that  platform  was  written  the  4  4  Free  Trade 
Tariff  ”  of  1846  had  given  us  such  a  boom  of  pros¬ 
perity  that  our  manufacturers  were  flourishing  as 
never  before ;  the  American  Clippers  were  sailing 
the  seas  in  the  service  of  the  greatest  foreign 
trade  we  had  ever  known;  and  Protection  had 
been  discarded  in  America,  as  it  was  forever  dead 
in  England.  Upon  this  platform  the  new  party  of 
freedom  went  before  the  people,  and  this  was  the 
result : 


Candidates  for 

President.  State  Party 

James  Buchanan . Pa . Dem. 

John  C.  Fremont . Cal . Rep. 

Millard  Fillmore . N.  Y . Amer. 


Popular  Electoral 

Vote.  Vote. 
1,838,169  174 

1,341,264  114 

874,538  8 


That  was  enough  to  show  the  politicians  what 
was  coming.  That  was  enough  to  show  that  the 
slave-power  had  doomed  the  old  Democratic 
party;  and  the  vote  for  Fillmore  was  enough  to 
prove  that  religious  bigotry  and  narrow  national 
prejudice  would  never  be  tolerated  by  the  Ameri¬ 
can  people.  Everybody  could  see  that  a  vast  ma¬ 
jority  of  those  who  had  voted  for  Fillmore  would 
certainly  join  the  new  party  at  the  next  election; 


242  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

that  the  Northern  and  Southern  wings  of  the  old 
Democratic  party  were  certain  to  part  company ; 
and  thus  the  result  plainly  foretold  that  the  great 
party  of  freedom,  reasserting  the  principles  of 
the  fathers,  was  inevitably  destined  to  rule  the 
Republic. 

And  fortunately  we  have  from  Lincoln  himself 
a  clear  and  definite  statement  of  his  position  on 
the  tariff  question  at  that  time.  On  October  11th, 
1859,  writing  to  a  friend  who  had  asked  for  a  pub¬ 
lic  declaration  of  his  tariff  views,  Lincoln  frankly 
explained  that  he  had  always  been  a  Henry  Clay 
Whig,  and  had  not  changed  his  personal  views  on 
the  tariff  question;  but  with  unerring  discretion, 
and  fairness  to  the  new  party,  he  went  on  to  say  :* 

“  It  is  my  opinion,  that,  just  now,  the  revival  of  that  question 
will  not  advance  the  cause  itself,  or  the  man  who  revives  it. 

“  We,  the  old  Whigs,  have  been  entirely  beaten  on  the  tariff 
question ;  and  we  shall  not  be  able  to  re-establish  the  policy  until 
the  absence  of  it  shall  have  demonstrated  the  necessity  for  it  in 
the  minds  of  men  heretofore  opposed  to  it.  With  this  view,  I 
should  prefer  to  not  now  write  a  public  letter  upon  the  subject.  ’ 1 

But  unlike  Lincoln,  and  contrary  to  his  prudent 
advice,  we  shall  now  see  how  the  Protection 
schemers  renewed  their  plots  and  adroitly  fas¬ 
tened  themselves  upon  the  new  party— precisely 
as  Hamilton  and  Morris  had  done  in  early  days,— 
precisely  as  the  Protection  leaders  in  our  day 
have  betrayed  the  people  ’s  interests  and  used  our 
sound  money  victories  as  a  pretext  for  the  tariff 
enormities  of  the  McKinley  bill  and  the  Dingley 
bill. 

One  needs  but  turn  to  the  Republican  platform 


♦Lamon’s  Life  of  Lincoln,  page  423. 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  243 

of  1860  to  read  a  confident  reassertion  of  the  fun¬ 
damental  principles  presented  in  the  first  plat¬ 
form.  It  distinctly  recognized  the  rights  of  the 
States  with  regard  to  their  domestic  institutions ; 
it  denounced  the  threats  of  secession  which  were 
then  current ;  took  strong  ground  as  the  party  of 
the  Union;  emphasized  its  opposition  to  the  alien¬ 
ation  of  our  public  lands  to  any  but  actual  settlers 
under  the  Homestead  Act ;  and  far  down,  in  the 
twelfth  clause,  was  presented  this  shrewdly  word¬ 
ed,  covert,  and  plausible  declaration : 

‘  *  That,  while  providing  revenue  for  the  support  of  the  general 
government  by  duties  upon  imports,  sound  policy  requires  such 
an  adjustment  of  these  imposts  as  to  encourage  the  development 
of  the  industrial  interests  of  the  whole  country;  and  we  com¬ 
mend  that  policy  of  national  exchanges  which  secures  to  the 
workingmen  liberal  wages,  to  agriculture  remunerating  prices,  to 
mechanics  and  manufacturers  an  adequate  reward  for  their  skill, 
labor,  and  enterprise,  and  to  the  nation  commercial  prosperity 
and  independence.  ’ ; 

Here  we  see  Hamilton  and  Morris,  long  dead, 
but  still  living  in  the  pernicious  doctrines  they 
had  taught,  in  the  sin-breeding  methods  they  em¬ 
ployed  to  fasten  upon  the  people  a  system  which 
the  people  had  flatly  repudiated. 

Here  we  see  Mason,  Gerry  and  Henry,  long 
dead,  yet  still  living  in  the  prudent,  patriotic,  and 
prophetic  words  in  which  they  foretold  the  awful 
consequences  certain  to  follow  upon  the  heels  of 
the  “guilty  bargain”  of  1787. 

Here  we  see  the  very  torch  with  which  the 
flames  of  rebellion  were  now  lighted— for  it  was 
this  fatal  declaration  for  Protection  to  Northern 
manufacturers  that  enabled  the  fiery  Southern 


244 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


leaders  to  hark  back  to  the  Hartford  Convention 
and  the  ‘  ‘  Tariff  of  Abominations ; ’ ’  to  inflame  the 
whole  South  by  charging— and  proving  by  the 
record— that  the  Protection  North  was  intent 
upon  enriching  itself  at  the  direct  and  heavy  ex¬ 
pense  of  the  Free  Trade  South;  and  that,  as  in¬ 
evitably  as  fate,  the  next  move  of  the  triumphant 
majority  in  Congress  would  be  to  destroy  South¬ 
ern  property  in  plantations  and  slaves  by  confis¬ 
cating  Four  Hundred  Millions  of  Hollars  (Lin¬ 
coln’s  estimate)  in  personal  property  through 
emancipation  without  compensation— precisely  as 
proposed  by  the  abolitionists  of  New  England. 
And  historic  proof  of  this  lies  in  the  awful  fact 
that  the  Morrill  bill  passed  the  Senate  February 
20th,  1861,  was  approved  by  President  Buchanan 
March  2d,  to  take  effect  April  1st— and  Sumter 
was  fired  on  April  14th ! 

Now  let  us  reverse  the  positions. 

It  was  the  Embargo  of  Madison’s  time  that 
touched  New  England’s  sensitive  pocket-nerve— 
that  temporarily  cut-off  her  profits  on  foreign 
trade  and  tied  many  of  her  ships  in  idleness  at  the 
docks.  Instantly  her  leaders  planned  rebellion; 
then  called  the  Hartford  Convention;  and  mean¬ 
while  secretly  moved  for  an  alliance  with  the  for¬ 
midable  enemy  with  whom  we  were  then  at 
war  !  And  at  that  time,  bear  in  mind,  slavery  ex¬ 
isted,  and  slave  property  was  still  recognized  in 
New  England,  precisely  as  it  was  recognized  in 
the  South. 

Let  us  now  suppose  that  up  to  1860  slavery  had 
continued  to  be  profitable  in  New  England;  and 
that  through  two  centuries  of  time  her  people  had 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  245 

been  steadily  building  a  proud,  prosperous,  cul¬ 
tivated,  and  Christian  civilization,  with  slave  la¬ 
bor  as  the  very  basis  of  all  her  industries.  Then 
let  us  suppose  that  a  Southern  majority  in  Con¬ 
gress  had  actually  captured  the  Presidency  and 
enacted  a  tariff:  law  to  enrich  the  South  at  the 
direct  expense  of  the  North;  and  beyond  that,  a 
formidable  group  of  Southern  reformers  were  ag¬ 
gressively  preaching,  openly  proposing,  and  defi¬ 
antly  boasting  control  of  the  party  which  had 
power  to  enact  a  law  and  enforce  a  demand  that 
New  England  should  overturn  her  whole  indus¬ 
trial  system,  and  New  England  people  should  in¬ 
dividually  sacrifice,  without  one  penny  of  compen¬ 
sation,  Four  Hundred  Millions  of  Dollars  in  slave 
property.  What  would  have  been  the  answer? 

This,  and  this  only,  would  have  been  the  an¬ 
swer  :. 

“We  must  fight!  I  repeat  it,  Sir— we  must 
fight!  An  appeal  to  arms,  and  to  the  God  of 
hosts,  is  all  that  is  left  us.  ’  ’ 

It  was  this  that  Lincoln  knew  and  felt;  it  was 
this  that  saddened  the  eyes  and  deepened  the  fur¬ 
rows  of  his  rugged  and  care-worn  countenance; 
and  this  is  why  he  first  solemnly  pledged  himself 
to  protect  the  property  rights  of  the  Southern 
people,  and  then,  throughout  a  raging  storm  of 
abuse  from  Northern  abolitionists,  bravely  stood 
to  the  faith  he  had  plighted  until  the  power  of  the 
Southern  armies  drove  him  to  the  necessity  for 
Emancipation  without  compensation  as  the  only 
possible  means  of  saving  the  Union. 

I  am  well  aware  that  it  is  the  complaisant  habit 
of  these  times  to  refer  to  the  Civil  War  as  “the 


246 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


inevitable  conflict”— the  calamity  which  had  to 
be.  Bnt  this  is  a  mere  begging  of  the  question— a 
contemptible  surrender  to  that  weariness  of  the 
human  mind  which  prompts  it  to  find  solace  in  the 
dream  that  “whatever  is,  is  right.”  Witness 
China,  India,  and  the  entire  East— excepting 
proud  little  Japan !  Witness  the  stupor  of  intel¬ 
lectual  resignation  which  in  Russia  still  holds 
more  than  one  hundred  millions  of  the  Caucasian 
race  in  the  grip  of  political  despotism.  Witness 
the  indifference  of  the  American  people  to  Mr. 
Roosevelt’s  assumption  of  despotic  power  over 
our  corporation  and  Trust  finance. 

No,  no;  it  is  thus  that  oppressed  people  reason 
— thus  that  tyranny  takes  hold ;  and  thus  that  ty¬ 
ranny  rules.  The  Civil  War  was  inevitable  only 
because  godless  pocket-interest  made  it  so.  The 
student  of  American  history  needs  only  to  look 
back  at  the  record  to  see  that  had  wise  old  George 
Mason’s  solemn  and  insistent  warning  been  heed¬ 
ed,  the  tariff  enormities  from  which  we  have  suf¬ 
fered  so  sorely  would  never  have  been  possible. 
Moderation  and  fairness,  in  both  Houses  of  Con¬ 
gress,  would  have  been  absolutely  necessary  to  se¬ 
cure  a  two-thirds  vote  in  favor  of  any  kind  of  Pro¬ 
tection  legislation.  The  rank  injustice  of  the 
“Tariff  of  Abominations”— for  the  exclusive 
benefit  of  the  North— could  never  have  been 
enacted ;  and  hence  the  Nullification  rebellion  and 
the  Morrill  bill  could  never  have  come,  with  their 
awful  proof  of  Northern  selfishness  and  tyranny, 
to  inflame  the  Southern  heart  and  mind  with 
teaching  and  convictions  which  led  straight  on  to 
the  horrors  of  the  Civil  War. 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  247 

And  if  we  had  had  no  Hartford  Convention,  no 
Tariff  of  Abominations,  no  Nullification  rebel¬ 
lion,  and  no  Morrill  bill  to  prepare  the  way  for 
Civil  War,  Slavery  would  surely,  without  the 
shadow  of  a  doubt,  have  been  abolished  by  peace¬ 
able  and  legal  means,  with  fair  compensation  to 
the  slave-owners —as  Lincoln  proposed,  and  as 
before  and  since  it  has  been  abolished  in  other 
parts  of  the  world.  Lincoln’s  election  was  indeed 
the  first  great  victory  for  peaceable  emancipa¬ 
tion;  and  but  for  the  Protection  record  of  the 
North,  but  for  the  blind,  sectional  and  tyrannous 
confiscation  proposals  of  New  England  abolition¬ 
ists,  the  fiery  Southern  leaders  could  never  by  any 
possibility  have  lashed  the  Southern  people  into 
armed  rebellion. 

So,  in  our  day,  the  McKinley  bill  could  never 
have  been  passed— for  to  get  a  bare  majority  vote 
in  its  favor  the  Protection  schemers  struck  a 
“ guilty  bargain”  with  the  silver  miners  of  the 
West!  They  passed  the  Sherman  Silver  Coinage 
Law;  they  gave  us  the  silver  craze;  and  they 
scourged  us  with  the  most  prolonged  and  desper¬ 
ate  panic  that  we  have  ever  known . 

And  the  Dingley  bill,  that  monstrous  measure 
of  political  perfidy,  in  open  betrayal  of  the  peo¬ 
ple’s  known  will— that  Mother  of  Trusts,  which 
has  created  Pour  Billions  of  Dollars  in  legalized 
watered  stocks  for  the  millionaires— that  iniqui¬ 
tous  measure  of  indirection  and  deceit  which 
has  filched  the  hard  earnings  and  scant  savings  of 
every  man,  woman  and  child  in  America— all  the 
shameless  outrages  of  that  Protection  infamy 


248 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


would  have  been  impossible  had  a  simple  two- 
thirds  vote  in  Senate  and  House  been  necessary  to 
its  passage. 

Thus,  at  this  late  day,  looking  back  over  more 
than  a  century  of  history,  and  briefly  summariz¬ 
ing  the  lessons  of  awful  experience,  we  can  plainly 
see  that  the  “guilty  bargain”  of  1787  sowed  the 
seeds  of  that  sectional  antagonism  of  interests 
which  immediately  bore  foul  fruit  in  the  sectional 
hate  and  sectional  strife  that  led  to  the  Hartford 
Convention.  It  was  that 4  4  bargain ’  ’  which  cursed 
us  with  full  twenty  years  more  of  the  hideous  hor¬ 
rors  of  the  African  slave  trade,  so  vividly  pic¬ 
tured  in  all  its  frightfulness  by  Mr.  John  R. 
Spears,  in  his  recent  book  entitled  4  4  The  Ameri¬ 
can  Slave  Trade.  ”  It  was  that  pocket-interest 
4  4  bargain  ’  ’  that  gave  us  the  4  4  Tariff  of  Abomina¬ 
tions  ’  ’  and  the  Nullification  rebellion.  It  was  that 
unspeakable  4  4  bargain  ’ ’  that  led  straight  on,  step 
by  step,  to  the  horrors  of  a  Civil  War  the  most 
frightful  of  recorded  history.  And  finally,  it  was 
that  accursed  4 4 bargain’ ’ — between  moneyed  aris¬ 
tocrats  at  the  North  and  slave-holding  aristocrats 
at  the  South— that  has  now  culminated  in  com¬ 
binations  of  wealth  and  power  which  array  the 
rich  in  solid  phalanx  of  opposition  to  every  move 
in  the  people’s  interest;  which  has  forced  upon 
millions  of  free-born  Americans  a  slavery  and 
degradation  beside  which  negro  slavery  was  irre¬ 
sponsible  and  child-like  happiness;  and  which 
would  again  menace  our  free  institutions  were  it 
not  for  the  sturdy  patience,  the  manly  self-con¬ 
trol,  and  the  dauntless  moral  courage  of  a  great, 
free  people,  unalterably  pledged  to  the  principles 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  249 


of  peace,  justice,  and  equality  before  the  law, 
which  the  fathers  wrote  into  our  Constitution. 

Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold, 

Wrong  forever  on  the  throne. 

But  that  scaffold  sways  the  future, 

And  behind  the  dim  unknown 

Standeth  God  within  the  shadow 
Keeping  watch  upon  His  own. 

—James  Russell  Lowell . 

The  proudest  heritage  that  I  own  is  the  record 
that  my  father  fought  four  years  in  defense  of 
Lincoln’s  principles —in  defense  of  the  Union 
which  he  knew  was  above  price  to  posterity !  But 
I  have  lived  to  read,  and  think,  and  travel;  1  have 
followed  a  settled  purpose  to  find  the  truth,  and  to 
write  it  fearlessly ;  I  have  made  a  business  of 
studying  European  institutions  in  comparison 
with  our  own,  and  in  contrasting  the  American 
present  with  the  American  past ;  and  thus  I  have 
come  to  see— precisely  what  our  fathers  and 
grandfathers  before  us  saw— that  in  thought,  in 
principle,  and  in  patriotic  purpose,  Lincoln  was 
a  Jeffersonian  Democrat  in  convictions,  and  ab¬ 
solutely  one  with  Jefferson  and  Jackson.  The 
proof  of  this  is  so  clear  that  no  man  need  go 
astray,  for  in  that  immortal  message  that  he  gave 
to  all  mankind  from  the  battle-field  of  Gettysburg, 
this  is  what  Lincoln  said : 

‘ 1  Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth  on 
this  continent  a  new  Nation,  conceived  in  Liberty,  and  dedicated 
to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

“Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether 
that  Nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can 
long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war. 


250 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field,  as  a  final  rest¬ 
ing  place  for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  Nation 
might  live. 

“It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the 
unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here  have  thus  far  so 
nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the 
great  task  remaining  before  us,  that  from  these  honored  dead 
we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the 
last  measure  of  devotion— that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these 
dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain— that  this  Nation  under  God 
shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom— and  that  government  of  the 
PEOPLE  BY  THE  PEOPLE  AND  FOR  THE  PEOPLE  Shall  not  perish  from 
the  earth. 7  7 

So,  in  almost  the  last  letter  that  Jackson 
penned  for  the  public  prints,  in  1844,  replying 
openly  to  a  tirade  of  New  England  abuse  of  the 
South,  Andrew  Jackson  said  this: 

‘  ‘  Instead  of  going  to  British  history  for  sentiments  worthy  of 
the  republican  youth  of  our  country,  I  would  recommend  those 
in  General  Washington’s  farewell  address,  and  particularly  his 
warning  us  to  avoid  entangling  alliances  with  foreign  nations, 
and  whatever  is  calculated  to  create  sectional  or  geographical 
parties  at  home. 7  7 

So,  throughout  his  whole  life,  Jefferson  wrote 
and  planned  and  labored  to  teach  that : 

“We  shall  never  give  up  our  Union,  the  last  anchor  of  our 
hope,  and  that  alone  which  is  to  prevent  this  heavenly  country 
from  becoming  an  arena  of  gladiators. 

“We  ought  for  so  dear  a  stake  to  sacrifice  every  attachment, 
every  enmity.” 

These  brief  extracts,  coupled  with  the  life-long 
work  of  those  who  penned  them,  make  it  perfectly 
evident  that  in  heart,  in  soul,  and  in  unbending 
purpose,  the  three  men  held  true  to  identically  the 
same  opposition  to  disunion,  identically  the  same 


LINCOLN  AND  FORGOTTEN  HISTORY.  251 

view  of  Constitutional  property  rights,  and  iden¬ 
tically  the  same  fundamental  faith  in  “govern¬ 
ment  of  the  people  by  the  people  and  for  the  peo¬ 
ple.  ’ ’ 

And  in  the  light  of  their  example  and  their 
teaching,  what  is  now  the  duty  of  patriot  soldiers 
who  fought  for  the  Union,  of  conscience  Bepubli- 
cans  who  believe  in  Lincoln’s  principles? 

I  have  no  fear  of  the  answer  that  is  coming ! 


THE  CAUSE  OF  PANICS -THE  MONEY 

QUESTION. 


*  *  You  will  see  that  we  are  completely  saddled  and  bridled,  and 
that  the  Bank  is  so  firmly  mounted  on  us  that  we  must  go  where 
they  will  guide.’ *  — Thomas  Jefferson  in  1792. 

1  ‘The  nation  is  at  this  time  so  strong  and  united  in  its  senti¬ 
ments,  that  it  cannot  be  shaken  at  this  moment.  But  suppose  a 
series  of  untoward  events  should  occur,  sufficient  to  bring  into 
doubt  the  competency  of  a  .Republican  government  to  meet  a 
crisis  of  great  danger,  or  to  unhinge  the  confidence  of  the  peo¬ 
ple  in  the  public  functionaries;  an  institution  like  this  (Bank  of 
the  United  States) ,  penetrating  by  its  branches  every  part  of  the 
Union,  acting  by  command  and  in  phalanx,  may,  in  a  critical 
moment,  upset  the  government.  I  deem  no  government  safe 
which  is  under  the  vassalage  of  any  self -constituted  authorities,  or 
any  other  authority  than  that  of  the  nation,  or  its  regular  func¬ 
tionaries.”  — Thomas  Jefferson  in  1809. 

“  The  unlimited  emission  of  bank  paper  has  banished  all  her 
(England’s)  specie,  and  is  now,  by  a  depreciation  acknowledged 
by  her  own  statesmen,  carrying  her  rapidly  to  bankruptcy  as  it 
did  France,  as  it  did  us,  and  will  do  us  again,  and  every  country 
permitting  paper  to  be  circulated  other  than  that  by  public  au¬ 
thority  rigorously  limited  to  the  just  measure  of  circulation.” 

— Thomas  Jefferson  in  1813. 

Chapter  VIII. 

Four  wars  have  been  made  necessary  to  prove 
onr  nationality — The  war  of  the  Revolution, 
which,  with  France ’s  timely  and  needed  aid,  gave 
us  Independence ;  the  war  of  1812,  which  proved 
that  we  were  quite  strong  enough  to  stand  alone; 
the  war  of  1861-65,  which  made  an  end  of  negro 
slavery  and  secession;  and  the  recent  war  with 

252 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


253 


Spain,  which  opened  our  eyes,  and  the  eyes  of  all 
Europe,  to  the  power  and  importance  of  the  great 
Republic  in  the  world-family  of  Nations. 

In  the  light  of  this  bloody  experience,  I  fancy 
there  are  few  who  will  question  that  we  are  for¬ 
ever  done  with  the  ages-old  fear  of  The  Man  on 
Horseback.  ForWashington,  Jackson,  Grant,  and 
Dewey — eternal  honor  to  their  patriot  names!— 
have  taught  us  exactly  how  to  employ  our  armies 
and  navies  in  defense  of  our  dearly  bought  liber¬ 
ties  ;  and  there  is  not  the  remotest  prospect  that 
American  freemen  will  ever  forget  the  precious 
heritage  of  instruction  in  the  military  art  which 
they  have  left  us. 

In  like  manner,  four  wretched  panics  have 
been  rendered  necessary  to  teach  us  in  the  school 
of  awful  experience  that  it  is  impossible  to  make 
something  out  of  nothing— to  teach  us  over  and 
over  again  the  sorry  lesson  that  our  fathers 
learned  through  blood  sacrifice  in  the  Revolution. 
For  one  needs  but  to  turn  to  the  histories  of  our 
Revolutionary  era  to  see  plainly  that  the  rock 
upon  which  our  heroic  struggle  for  Independence 
was  almost  wrecked,  was  that  of  paper  money— 
manufactured  wholesale  by  printing  presses, 
first  in  every  colony,  and  later  by  the  Continental 
Congress.  Continental  currency  became  abso¬ 
lutely  worthless,  alike  to  our  soldiers,  our  mer¬ 
chants,  and  our  bankers ;  and  the  heritage  of  that 
awful  period  has  come  down  to  us  in  the  familiar 
adage  “Not  worth  a  Continental”— a  phrase 
which  tells  the  whole  story  in  a  single  sentence. 

It  was  because  of  that  bitter  and  terrible  expe¬ 
rience— because  irredeemable  paper  money  abso- 


254  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

lutely  destroyed  public  credit  and  paralyzed  do¬ 
mestic  commerce— that  in  penning  and  adopting 
the  Constitution  our  fathers  wisely  limited  the 
national  government  to  the  sole  power  of  coining 
money ;  and  here  is  the  exact  wording  of  this  lim¬ 
itation  : 

‘  ‘  To  coin  money,  regulate  the  value  thereof,  and  of  foreign 
coin;  and  to  fix  the  standard  of  weights  and  measures. 

“The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  Con¬ 
stitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the 
States  respectively,  or  to  the  people.  ’  ’ 

By  this  they  meant  specifically,  as  overwhelm¬ 
ing  contemporary  evidence  gives  proof,  that  our 
only  legal  money  should  be  real  money— the  act¬ 
ual  coin,  with  its  weight  and  value  plainly 
stamped  upon  the  face. 

‘  ‘  Like  a  dropsical  man  calling  for  water,  water,  our  deluded 
citizens  are  clamoring  for  more  banks,  more  banks.  The  Ameri¬ 
can  mind  is  now  in  that  state  of  fever  which  the  world  has  so 
often  seen  in  the  history  of  other  nations.  We  are  under  the 
bank  bubble,  as  England  was  under  the  South  Sea  bubble,  France 
under  the  Mississippi  bubble,  and  as  every  nation  is  liable  to  be 
under  whatever  bubble,  design  or  delusion  may  puff  up  in  mo¬ 
ments  when  off  their  guard.  We  are  now  taught  to  believe  that 
legerdemain  tricks  upon  paper  can  produce  as  solid  wealth  as 
hard  labor  in  the  earth.  It  is  vain  for  common  sense  to  urge  that 
nothing  can  produce  but  nothing;  that  it  is  an  idle  dream  to 
believe  in  a  philosopher ’s  stone  which  is  to  turn  everything  into 
gold,  and  to  redeem  man  from  the  original  sentence  of  his  Maker, 

‘  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow  shall  he  eat  his  bread.  *  ’  ’ 

—  Thomas  Jefferson  in  1816. 

Tbe  money  question  is  so  involved  in  mystery ; 
there  are,  apparently,  so  many  different  kinds  of 
money;  and  fear,  avarice,  and  ignorance  have 
made  such  a  mess  of  financial  terms  and  techni- 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


255 


calities,  that  most  men  despair  of  ever  being  able 
to  understand  the  problem.  But  our  recent  ex¬ 
perience  with  the  money  question  is  so  vivid  in 
recollection  and  so  vital  in  teaching,  that  I  think 
it  will  now  be  possible  to  make  the  subject  plain 
as  a,  b,  c,— if  we  simply  strip  the  discussion  of  all 
technical  terms  and  appeal  directly  to  common 
sense. 

“  We  have  been  busy  with  the  critique  of  reason.  I  should  like 
to  see  a  critique  of  common  sense.  It  would  be  a  real  benefit  to 
mankind  if  we  could  convincingly  prove  to  the  ordinary  intelli¬ 
gence  how  far  it  can  go.;’  — Goethe. 

It  is  in  the  school  of  experience  that  we  learn 
life’s  lasting  lessons;  and  since  my  personal  ex¬ 
perience  undoubtedly  tallies  with  the  personal 
experience  of  tens  of  thousands  of  intelligent 
Americans  who  have  lived  through  the  panics  of 
1873  and  1893-96,  I  shall  now  endeavor  to  simpli¬ 
fy  the  subject  by  telling,  as  a  narrative,  precisely 
how  I  learned  what  I  know  of  the  money  ques¬ 
tion. 

Just  about  the  first  thing  I  learned  when  I  be¬ 
gan  to  think,  as  a  boy  of  twelve  in  a  public  school 
in  the  Southwest,  was  that  “  action  and  reaction 
are  equal,  ’ ’  and  we  can  never  have  an  effect  with¬ 
out  a  cause.  That  started  me  in  the  fixed  habit  of 
invariably  looking  for  causes  when  I  was  puz¬ 
zled  by  effects. 

The  great  panic  of  1873  is  the  most  memorable 
event  of  my  boyhood  and  youth.  It  was  that 
panic  which,  in  the  fall  of  1873,  suddenly  threw 
me  out  of  a  happy  job  on  the  field  corps  then 
locating  the  Shenandoah  Valley  railroad;  upset 


256  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

all  my  boyhood  hopes  and  plans  for  becoming  a 
civil  engineer;  tumbled  me  into  a  newspaper  of¬ 
fice  under  a  six  months  *  contract  for  twelve 
hours  work  daiJy  at  four  dollars  per  week;  ap¬ 
palled  my  youthful  imagination  with  the  horrors 
of  free  soup  houses  for  hungry  and  helpless  men, 
women  and  children— a  thing  I  had  never  seen  or 
heard  of  before ;  and  started  me  to  thinking  deep¬ 
ly  about  what  could  possibly  cause  such  unwel¬ 
come,  widespread,  and  awful  disaster.  I  have 
been  thinking  and  hunting  for  that  cause  ever 
since;  and  for  nearly  thirty  years  past,  I  have 
been  closely  watching  and  intently  studying  the 
seamy  side  of  that  prosperity  and  greatness 
which  our  politicians  and  promoters  boast  so 
loudly. 

In  the  fall  of  1874,  when  the  greenback  craze 
was  at  its  height,  1  heard  General  Thomas  Ewing 
make  an  open-air  speech  to  workingmen  in  ex¬ 
planation  of  the  greenback  theory;  and  to  this 
day  it  stands  out  in  memory  as  the  most  impres¬ 
sive  and  convincing  political  argument  to  which 
I  have  ever  listened.  It  was  a  cool,  beautiful, 
moonlight  night;  a  little  scaffolding  of  rough 
new  boards  had  been  set-up  against  the  brick  wall 
of  an  idle  glass  factory;  and  two  smoky  oil 
torches  flickered  on  either  side  of  the  speaker, 
standing  alone  on  the  platform.  He  was  a  very 
large  man,  simply  attired  in  a  cutaway  suit  of 
brownish  cloth;  surmounting  the  deep  chest  and 
broad  shoulders  was  a  massive  head,  crowned 
with  curly  brown  locks;  the  voice  was  clear, 
strong  and  resonant,  reaching  to  the  farthest 
limits  of  the  great  crowd  assembled;  the  manner 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


257 


was  deliberate,  earnest  and  profoundly  impres¬ 
sive;  every  utterance  came  straight  from  a  heart 
that  pulsed  with  manly  emotion;  every  feature 
of  the  strong  face  portrayed  fearless  and  daunt¬ 
less  conviction;  and  for  more  than  an  hour  he 
held  his  vast  audience  spellbound  in  the  mastery 
of  his  thought  and  speech  and  irresistible  logic. 
Then  and  there  he  taught  me  that  money  is  the 
life  blood  of  our  Nation’s  commerce  and  indus¬ 
try;  that  money  is  the  one  measure  of  all  other 
values ;  and  that  if  the  volume  of  money  be  sud¬ 
denly,  forcibly,  or  unnaturally  contracted— then 
wages,  salaries,  prices  and  all  property  values 
are  certain  to  decline.  Boy  as  I  was,  untrained 
in  economic  studies  and  experience,  it  is  needless 
to  say  that  he  further  convinced  me,  as  he  con¬ 
vinced  thousands  of  others,  in  those  times,  that 
the  Grand  Old  Party,  for  which  he  fought, 
had  been  captured  by  shrewd  moneyed  men,  who 
were  then  deliberately  retiring  the  greenbacks 
that  they  might  force  wages  down,  depreciate  all 
market  prices  and  property  values,  and,  especial¬ 
ly,  make  Government  bonds  and  all  private  debts 
payable  in  gold  instead  of  greenbacks— 4  The 
money  of  the  people.  ’ 9  And  the  certain  and  sure 
remedy  which  he  proposed  to  cure  all  our  ills  was 
that,  instead  of  retiring  the  greenbacks,  we 
should  issue  more  of  them— issue  enough  to  give 
us  prosperity  and  happiness  in  place  of  idle  fac¬ 
tories  and  free  soup  houses  to  feed  men  who  were 
able  and  willing  to  work,  but  could  find  no  work 
to  do. 

Shortly  afterwards  I  heard  Senator  Allan  G. 
Thurman,  i  The  noble  old  Roman,”  make  a  si  mi- 


258  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

lar  address ;  then  I  read  a  convincing  speech  by 
Senator  George  H.  Pendleton,  the  courtly  and 
charming  gentleman  who  came  so  near  capturing 
the  Democratic  nomination  for  President;  and 
finally,  my  greenback  education  was  completed 
by  a  sledge-hammer  speech  in  print  from  that 
hard-headed  old  Scotchman  Senator  James  B. 
Beck,  who  had  been  a  neighbor  and  friend  of  my 
grandfather  in  Kentucky. 

Thus  it  was  that  I  came  to  look  upon  John 
Sherman ’s  resumption  of  specie  payments  as  the 
tap-root  of  all  our  difficulties;  and  in  1876  when 
Tilden  and  Hendricks  were  nominated  without 
an  indorsement  of  the  greenback  program,  I  ac¬ 
counted  it  a  sore  calamity.  But  I  saw  all  my 
leaders  wheeling  into  line ;  I  saw  that  Credit  Mo- 
bilier,  the  Star  Route  frauds  and  4 ‘the  whisky 
ring”  had  made  Reform  the  supreme  issue;  and 
so  I  heartily  joined  the  Democratic  party, 
marched  in  the  torchlight  processions,  gloried  in 
the  certain  prospect  of  winning,  and  felt  confi¬ 
dent  that  after  the  victory  we  could  and  would 
save  the  country  from  the  calamity  of  actual  re¬ 
sumption  of  specie  payments. 

When  the  Republicans  deliberately  euchred 
Tilden  out  of  his  election  through  the  8  to  7 
trick  in  Congress,  I  was  not  only  hot  with  indig¬ 
nation,  but  I  confidently  looked  for  another  panic 
in  1879— as  the  greenback  leaders  had  predicted. 

Then  it  was  that  my  eyes  were  opened ! 

For  when  the  resumption  of  specie  payments 
actually  came  in  1879,  and  I  saw  greenbacks, 
bank  notes,  and  all  kinds  of  paper  and  silver 
money  on  a  par  with  gold— instead  of  a  panic,  I 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


259 


was  utterly  astonished  to  see  the  whole  country 
launched  into  a  perfect  “boom”  of  prosperity! 
The  price  of  iron  soared  sky-high;  all  the  idle 
furnaces,  mills  and  factories  started  up  full  tilt; 
wages  advanced  in  every  branch  of  industry; 
railroad  building  began  again  in  dead  earnest; 
“town-lot  booms”  in  Southern  and  Western  cit¬ 
ies  began  to  amaze  people  with  the  madness  of 
the  speculation;  great  fortunes  were  piled-up 
through  the  enormous  advance  in  the  market  val¬ 
ues  of  all  kinds  of  stocks  and  bonds;  and  it  is 
none  other  than  the  inevitable  Carnegie  who  has 
since  characterized  the  ten  year  period  from  1880 
to  1890  as  “a  decade  which  is  probably  to  rank 
as  the  Golden  Age  of  the  Republic,  as  far  as  ma¬ 
terial  prosperity  is  concerned.” 

The  panic  had  come  under  the  Morrill  tariff, 
and  it  had  gone  under  the  Morrill  tariff;  and  so 
I  knew— as  all  Americans  now  need  to  remember 
—that  the  tariff  had  absolutely  nothing  to  do 
with  either  the  panic  of  1873  or  the  boom  of  1880- 
90.  Knowing  this,  in  the  campaign  of  1880,  when 
I  stood  within  ten  feet  of  “the  Plumed  Knight” 
of  the  Republican  hosts  and  heard  him  shouting 
that  the  tariff  was  the  cause  of  our  great  prosper¬ 
ity,  and  that  if  we  touched  the  tariff  we  would 
have  another  panic — I  simply  laughed  at  the  po¬ 
litical  trickster.  For  I  knew,  as  thousands  of 
others  well  knew  at  the  time,  that  Blaine  was 
adroitly  shifting  the  issue  and  deluding  the  peo¬ 
ple  to  keep  John  Sherman  from  winning  the 
Presidency. 

In  short,  the  boom  of  1880  was  lesson  enough 
for  me— quite  enough  to  dispel  my  youthful 


260  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

dream  of  the  possibility  of  creating  prosperity 
with  greenbacks.  I  began  then  to  understand 
what  Jefferson  meant  when  he  wrote:  “We  are 
now  taught  to  believe  that  legerdemain  tricks 
upon  paper  can  produce  as  solid  wealth  as  hard 
labor  in  the  earth.  ”  I  plainly  saw  that  however 
important  the  volume  of  money  might  be,  it  was 
infinitely  more  important  that  all  our  money 
should  be  as  good  as  the  best — “as  good  as 
gold.”  And  then,  for  the  first  time,  I  began  to 
have  a  wholesome  respect  for  John  Sherman — 
who  was  chiefly  responsible  in  giving  us  specie 
payments,  and  who  had  been  furiously  abused 
for  his  work.  For  however  “cold”  he  was  to  the 
politicians,  I  could  see,  clearly  enough,  that  his 
head  was  dead-level  on  the  money  question;  be¬ 
cause  every  prediction  he  made  had  now  been 
more  than  fulfilled— to  the  utter  confusion  of  all 
my  greenback  heroes  and  philosophers. 

In  the  light  of  this  instruction  and  experience, 
when  we  were  plunged  into  the  panic  of  1893,  the 
situation  was  so  exactly  parallel  to  what  had  hap¬ 
pened  before,  that  I  marveled  how  men  could  so 
soon  forget.  Each  and  every  step  leading  up  to 
the  panic  of  1873  was  duplicated  in  that  of  1893 ; 
every  argument  presented  by  the  advocates  of 
the  free  coinage  of  silver  had  been  previously 
employed  by  the  greenbackers ;  and  after  the 
panic  we  were  scourged  by  the  same  widespread 
disaster,  the  same  wretchedness  of  the  unem¬ 
ployed,  and  the  same  prolonged  industrial  de¬ 
pression.  To  show  how  true  this  is,  let  me  pre¬ 
sent  the  familiar  facts  in  parallel  columns : 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


261 


PANIC  OF  1873. 

Black  Friday,  in  May,  1868, 
when  Gould  and  Fisk  cornered 
gold,  spreading  wreck  and  ruin 
among  Wall  Street  brokers,  and 
causing  the  gravest  alarm 
throughout  bank  and  commer¬ 
cial  circles  the  country  over. 
Immediately  Congress  began  to 
discuss  the  idea  of  issuing  more 
of  the  greenbacks,  as  a  means 
of  preventing  a  repetition  of 
the  corner  in  gold. 

1870 — Passage  by  Congress 
of  the  famous  greenback  bill, 
upon  the  theory  that  if  we  had 
money  enough,  and  the  govern¬ 
ment  issued  all  of  it,  Wall 
Street  corners  in  gold  would  be 
impossible.  President  Grant 
wisely  vetoed  the  measure;  and 
then  instantly  the  greenbackers 
began  making  a  direct  appeal 
to  the  people — putting  able 
speakers  in  the  field,  distribut¬ 
ing  literature,  and  actively  or¬ 
ganizing  party  machinery  in 
every  State  in  the  Union. 

The  apparent  strength  of  the 
greenback  movement  began  at 
once  to  alarm  bankers  and  mer¬ 
chants  at  home  and  abroad ; 
gold  commanded  a  premium 
and  was  steadily  withdrawn 
from  circulation  by  shrewd 
financiers  who  were  hoarding  it, 
thus  rapidly  contracting  the 
volume,  of  our  money ;  Europe 


PANIC  OF  1893. 

1878 — Passage  of  the  Bland 
Allison  act  providing  for  the 
the  coinage  of  silver  dollars  at 
the  rate  of  $2,000,000  per 
month,  upon  the  theory  that 
they  were  1 1  coin, ,  ’  and  were 
needed  to  take  the  place  of 
greenbacks,  which  had  already 
been  redeemed  and  canceled. 
Agitation  for  the  free  coinage 
of  silver  began,  especially 
through  Western  newspapers. 

1890— Passage  of  the  Sher¬ 
man  Silver  Coinage  Act  pro¬ 
viding  for  the  purchase  of  $4,- 
000,000  worth  of  silver  “bul¬ 
lion”  per  month— to  be  stored 
in  the  Treasury  vaults,  and 
Treasury  notes  (greenbacks)  to 
that  amount  to  be  issued  in¬ 
stead.  And  instantly  the  free 
silver  men  began  making  a  di¬ 
rect  appeal  to  the  people — for 
the  “free  coinage”  of  green¬ 
back  silver  certificates,  i.  e., 
paper  money,  issued  by  the  gov¬ 
ernment,  contrary  to  the  very 
letter  of  the  Constitution. 

The  apparent  strength  of  the 
free  silver  movement  began  at 
once  to  alarm  bankers  and  mer¬ 
chants  at  home  and  abroad; 
shrewd  financiers  began  to 
watch  the  gold  reserve  in  the 
Treasury  and  to  convert  their 
stocks  and  bonds  into  gold, 
which  they  steadily  hoarded  in 
safe-deposit  vaults,  thus  with- 


262 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


began  to  sell  our  securities  and 
withdraw  capital ;  railroad 
builders  and  financiers  found 
increasing  difficulty  in  selling 
their  securities;  Jay  Cooke  & 
Co.,  the  great  Wall  Street 
bankers  of  that  day,  finding  it 
impossible  to  market  the  bonds 
of  the  Northern  Pacific  Rail- 
road  Co.,  the  firm  failed  for 
many  millions  in  September, 
1873— and  thus  we  were 
plunged  into  a  terrific  panic, 
which  quickly  spread  through¬ 
out  the  whole  country.  Gold  of 
course  went  to  a  high  premium; 
that  made  real  money  scarce; 
and  the  scarcity  of  money  in 
every  part  of  the  country  made 
tens  of  thousands  of  converts  to 
the  theories  of  the  greenback 
leaders,  many  of  whom  were 
distinguished  and  able  men. 

To  stem  the  tide  of  disaster 
and  to  give  the  world  assurance 
that  the  American  people  were 
determined  to  pay  their  obliga¬ 
tions  in  honest  money,  Congress 
had  passed  the  law  providing 
for  the  resumption  of  specie 
payments — the  greenbacks  to 
be  retired  gradually  at  the  rate 
of  $4,000,000  per  month  through 
eight  years  of  time,  thus  pre¬ 
venting  any  sudden  contraction 
of  the  currency.  But  after  $50,- 
000,000  of  the  greenbacks  had 
been  thus  redeemed  in  gold,  in 
1875  the  greenback  movement 
was  so  threatening  that  a  law 


drawing  it  from  circulation 
and  rapidly  contracting  the 
volume  of  our  money;  Europe 
began  to  sell  our  securities  and 
withdraw  capital ;  railroad 
building  and  constructive  enter¬ 
prise  halted;  the  prices  of  all 
farm  products  were  driven  to 
the  lowest  levels  in  all  our  his¬ 
tory;  the  government  gold  re¬ 
serve  of  $100,000,000  steadily 
declined;  Charles  Foster,  the 
Republican  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  visited  New  York  to 
negotiate  a  sale  of  government 
bonds  in  January,  1893 — but 
did  nothing ,  for  obvious  politi¬ 
cal  reasons;  and  thus,  two 
months  after  Mr.  Cleveland 
went  back  to  the  White  House, 
greenback  -silver  legislation 
plunged  us  into  the  awful  panic 
of  1893. 

To  stem  the  tide  of  disaster, 
and  to  give  the  world  assurance 
that  the  American  people  were 
determined  to  pay  their  obliga¬ 
tions  in  honest  money,  Mr. 
Cleveland  promptly  called  an 
extra  session  of  Congress  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  repealing 
the  Sherman  Silver  Coinage 
law.  Then  through  long  weeks 
of  dire  panic  and  bitter  war¬ 
fare  with  the  1  ‘  combination 1 1 
of  Protection  and  Free  Silver 
Senators,  he  never  rested  until 
that  panic  breeding  Republican 
legislation  was  wiped  from  our 
statute  books.  That  heroic  act 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


263 


was  passed  providing  that  no 
more  of  the  greenbacks  should 
be  retired — that  they  should  be 
kept  in  circulation ;  and  that 
after  January  1,  1879,  the 

Treasury  should  keep  a  gold  re¬ 
serve  of  at  least  $100,000,000 
with  which  to  redeem  on  de¬ 
mand  (but  not  cancel)  any 
greenbacks  that  might  be  pre¬ 
sented.  This  act  was  carried 
out  in  good  faith,  and  in  Janu¬ 
ary,  1879,  for  the  first  time 
since  the  war,  gold,  silver  and 
paper  money  stood  at  par — and 
no  man  longer  doubted  the  clear 
intent  of  the  American  people 
to  carry  out  the  very  letter  and 
spirit  of  all  our  laws  specifical¬ 
ly  providing  for  the  payment 
of  the  greenbacks  and  our  war 
debts  in  honest  money.  Then 
followed  the  great  boom  of 
1880— as  the  direct  and  obvi¬ 
ous  result  of  our  first  notable 
victory  for  sound  money  since 
the  Civil  War. 

The  panic  had  come  and  gone 
under  the  Morrill  tariff;  every 
well-informed  man  knew  that 
the  greenback  craze  had  been 
the  tap-root  of  the  whole  trou¬ 
ble;  and  John  Sherman,  as 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and 
author  of  the  law  which  gave  us 
the  boon  of  honest  money  and 
booming  prosperity— was  the 
logical  Republican  candidate 
for  President.  Then  and  there 
the  1 1  magnetic ’ ’  Mr.  Blaine 


of  public  service  began  the 
work  of  restoring  the  public 
credit.  And  whereas  the  early 
issues  of  government  bonds  to 
maintain  the  gold  reserve  had 
gone  begging  at  the  banking 
houses  of  Morgan  and  Roths¬ 
child,  the  whole  country  now 
responded  to  the  government’s 
need,  and  later  issues  of  bonds 
were  over-subscribed  by  thou¬ 
sands  of  home  bankers  and  in¬ 
dividual  capitalists.  Confi¬ 
dence  thus  restored,  prosperity 
immediately  began  to  take  root. 
Our  exports  rose  by  leaps  and 
bounds;  American  manufactur¬ 
ers,  especially  of  machinery, 
enjoyed  a  foreign  demand 
which  was  unprecedented;  our 
production  of  pig  iron  began  to 
rise  rapidly;  and  by  1895  the 
effects  of  the  panic  were  dis¬ 
appearing.  We  were  again 
upon  the  open  highway  to  nor¬ 
mal  and  healthy  business  condi¬ 
tions. 

But  the  free  silver  men  kept- 
up  a  perfect  din  of  agitation; 
Mr.  McKinley,  the  notorious 
advocate  of  free  coinage  of  sil¬ 
ver,  captured  the  Republican 
nomination  under  a  forced  and 
uncertain  pledge  to  maintain 
the  parity  of  gold  and  silver; 
Bryan,  the  fearless  and  frank 
advocate  of  free  silver,  cap¬ 
tured  the  Democratic  nomina¬ 
tion;  and  thus  we  were  again 
scourged  with  renewed  and  more 


264 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


euchred  Sherman  out  of  the 
nomination  he  had  deservedly 
won ;  nominated  Garfield  be¬ 
cause  he  could  not  possibly  win 
himself;  boldly  shifted  the  is¬ 
sue  from  the  money  question  to 
the  tariff ;  made  ‘ 1  Protection  to 
home  industries’ ’  the  battle-cry 
of  the  party;  boasted  loudly 
that  all  our  prosperity  was  born 
of  that  policy;  savagely  threat¬ 
ened  a  return  of  the  panic  if 
the  Republican  party  were  driv¬ 
en  from  power;  and  introduced 
the  shallow  pretense  of  Reci¬ 
procity  to  hold  the  thousands  of 
wavering  free  traders  in  the 
Republican  party  whom  Gar¬ 
field  had  taught  to  believe  in 
“that  kind  of  Protection  which 
leads  straight  on  to  free  trade.  ’ 7 
In  other  words,  it  was  Blaine 
who  euchred  John  Sherman  out 
of  the  nomination  he  had  de¬ 
servedly  won  in  1880— precisely 
as  it  was  Hanna  who  euchred 
Thomas  B.  Reed  out  of  the 
nomination  which  Reed  had  de¬ 
servedly  won  in  1896 — because 
Reed  was  a  sincere  sound 
money  man  while  McKinley 
was  a  rank  free  silver  enthu¬ 
siast.  Thus,  it  was  Blaine  who 
originated  in  1880  the  familiar 
program  of  shouting  Protection 
and  threatening  panic— which 
shameless  subterfuge  Mark 
Hanna  employed  in  1896,  again 
employed  in  1900,  and  is  still 
employing  as  a  means  of  delud¬ 
ing  and  taxing  the  people  for 


prolonged  industrial  depression 
— solely  because  of  three  years 
of  shameless  delay  in  enacting 
the  gold  standard  law.  Bryan 
polled  no  less  than  6,250,000 
votes  in  1896;  and  the  Repub¬ 
licans,  making  haste  to  enact 
the  Dingley  bill,  but  doing 
nothing  to  redeem  their  promise 
•  of  the  gold  standard,  the  de¬ 
pression  continued  throughout 
1897-98.  Early  in  1899,  public 
sentiment  forced  the  McKinley 
administration  to  definitely 
pledge  themselves  to  enact  the 
law  establishing  the  gold  stand¬ 
ard,  which  was  finally  passed  in 
March,  1900.  Once  more  Mc¬ 
Kinley  and  Bryan  were  the  op¬ 
posing  candidates.  But  this 
time  McKinley  stood  squarely 
and  openly  for  the  single  gold 
standard,  which  of  course  re¬ 
elected  him ;  and  that  fact,  that 
fact  alone,  furnishes  the  com¬ 
plete  explanation  of  the  pros¬ 
perity  which  we  enjoy — and 
shall  continue  to  enjoy  so  long 
as  we  stand  staunchly  and  fear¬ 
lessly  for  the  single  gold  stand¬ 
ard.  Proof  of  this  lies  in  the 
record  that  the  McKinley  bill 
was  followed  by  disaster  and 
panic — obviously  because  of 
silver  legislation  and  silver  agi¬ 
tation  ;  and  the  Dingley  bill 
failed  to  produce  prosperity 
during  1897  and  1898  because 
of  the  uncertainty  of  McKin¬ 
ley  ’s  position.  Improvement 
began  in  1899,  when  McKinley 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


265 


the  sole  benefit  of  the  combina-  became  definite  in  his  pledges 
tions  and  Trusts,  which  have  so  to  maintain  the  gold  standard; 
fabulously  enriched  Carnegie,  and  the  great  boom  came  in 
Rockefeller,  Morgan  and  their  1900,  with  the  enactment  of  the 
followers  since  the  passage  of  gold  standard  law. 
the  infamous  Dingley  bill. 


Thus  we  see,  side  by  side,  the  essential  facts  as 
to  the  two  recent  panics  which  are  still  vivid  in 
the  personal  recollection  of  millions  of  Ameri¬ 
cans  in  the  prime  of  life.  And  what  is  true  of 
these  two  panics,  is  equally  true  of  the  two  which 
preceded  them. 

After  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  the  first 
great  panic  we  suffered — the  one  which  we  still 
hear  about  and  to  which  economists  and  histor¬ 
ians  refer  constantly — was  that  of  1837.  And  as 
all  agree,  the  sole  cause  and  the  complete  expla¬ 
nation  of  that  disastrous  event  was  Andrew  Jack¬ 
son’s  determined  and  relentless  war  upon  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States.  In  my  Jackson  chap¬ 
ter  we  have  seen  how  a  “combination”  between 
the  money  power  and  the  advocates  of  Protection 
deliberately  sought:  (1)  to  enrich  Northern  man¬ 
ufacturers  at  the  expense  of  Southern  planters 
and  Western  farmers  through  Protection  legisla¬ 
tion;  (2)  to  absolutely  control  the  money,  credit, 
and  banking  facilities  of  the  entire  country;  (3) 
by  simple  majority  vote  in  Congress  to  control 
all  national  legislation;  (4)  and  then  through  the 
election  of  a  President  pledged  to  Protection  and 
the  Bank  monopoly,  to  dictate  the  whole  govern¬ 
mental  policy  of  the  American  people.  The  Bank 
was  the  keystone  in  the  arch  of  that  “combina¬ 
tion;”  and  as  Jackson  pithily  put  the  issue,  the 


266  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

question  was  simply— Shall  the  Bank,  or  the  peo¬ 
ple  rule!  The  overwhelming  vote  of  the  people 
in  1832  decided  against  the  Bank  and  against 
Protection;  but  in  the  imperatively  necessary 
process  of  overthrowing  that  brazen  attempt  at 
monopoly  and  tyranny,  our  finances  were  thrown 
into  confusion  and  disorder— and  thus  the  era 
of  State  banks  and  State  bank  notes  was  inaugu¬ 
rated.  No  provision  was  made  by  the  national 
government  for  either  bank  examination  or  the 
redemption  of  State  bank  notes  in  coin;  whole¬ 
sale  inflation  of  our  currency  resulted  inevitably ; 
that  was  immediately  followed  by  mad  specula¬ 
tion,  especially  in  Western  lands,  which  were 
made  the  basis  for  the  issue  of  millions  of  bank 
notes— and  then  came  the  crash  in  1837,  when 
every  bank  in  the  country  suspended  specie  pay¬ 
ments! 

Mr.  Schurz  has  given  an  admirable  review  of 
the  causes  and  effects  of  this  first  great  panic,  in 
his  biography  of  Henry  Clay;  and  hence  it  is 
only  necessary  to  say  here,  that  the  best  State 
banks  soon  resumed  specie  payments— that  is, 
they  redeemed  their  own  notes  and  those  of  other 
good  banks  in  coin  on  demand.  Through  rigid 
adherence  to  that  policy,  the  State  banks  supplied 
the  people  with  an  ample  volume  of  sound 
money,  which,  with  adequate  banking  facilities  in 
every  State,  gave  us  the  phenomenal  and  pro¬ 
longed  era  of  prosperity  and  development  be¬ 
tween  1840  and  1857.  And  this,  mark  you,  was 
under  the  famous  Free  Trade  Tariff!  That  tar¬ 
iff  law  put  us  abreast  of  England  in  the  race  for 
leading  place  in  the  commerce  of  the  world.  Then 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


267 


it  was  that  American  Clippers  became  famous  in 
song  and  story — just  as  hundreds  of  steamers 
are  now  waiting  and  building  and  planning  to 
fly  the  American  colors  so  soon  as  we  have  com¬ 
mon  sense  enough  to  sweep  away  stupid  tariff 
restrictions  upon  our  commerce,  as  England  did 
wisely  full  sixty  years  ago ! 

The  next  great  panic  that  we  suffered  was  the 
historic  one  of  1857,  still  fresh  in  the  memory  of 
our  oldest  financiers,  and  conspicuous  in  the  an¬ 
nals  of  our  financial  history.  Simple  self-pres¬ 
ervation  had  prompted  the  leading  State  banks 
to  maintain  specie  payments — for  they  either  had 
to  pay  specie  or  be  driven  out  of  business  by 
wiser  rivals.  After  the  panic  of  1837,  a  few  State 
legislatures  also  enacted  excellent  laws  making 
specie  payments  obligatory;  and  many  able  men 
foresaw  the  need  for  national  supervision.  But 
still  no  practical  steps  were  taken  to  that  end. 
As  an  inevitable  consequence,  State  banks  con¬ 
tinued  to  multiply;  new  and  unfamiliar  bank 
notes  were  steadily  added  to  the  money  in  circu¬ 
lation;  shrewd  promoters  began  to  make  a  busi¬ 
ness  of  organizing  little  banks  in  one  part  of  the 
country  and  then  circulating  their  bank  notes  in 
far  distant  States ;  the  purchase  and  sale  of  bank 
notes  became  a  distinct  brokerage  business;  the 
railroad  and  the  telegraph  were  yet  in  the  infancy 
of  their  development ;  and  thus,  late  in  the  fifties, 
the  whole  country  was  flooded  with  bank  notes, 
issued  by  good,  bad  and  indifferent  concerns; 
and  the  only  protection  that  merchants,  bankers 
and  traders  had  against  the  uncertain  fluctua¬ 
tions  of  such  currency  was  the  frequently  pub- 


268 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


lished  “bank  note  detectors/’  which  made  busi¬ 
ness  a  burden  in  those  times.  “Wild  cat”  and 
“red  dog”  are  some  of  the  epithets  descriptive  of 
that  currency  which  have  come  down  to  us.  The 
crash  finally  came  in  1857,  with  the  failure  of  the 
Ohio  Life  and  Trust  Company,  a  great  banking 
institution  with  headquarters  in  Cincinnati. 
Numerous  bank  failures  in  all  parts  of  the  coun¬ 
try  quickly  followed;  specie  payments  were  again 
suspended  by  all  the  banks ;  gold  at  once  went  to 
a  premium  and  ivas  promptly  hoarded  and  with¬ 
drawn  from  circulation;  that  sudden  contraction 
in  the  volume  of  real  money,  and  the  panic  de¬ 
cline  in  the  value  of  all  kinds  of  bank  notes, 
quickly  spread  alarm  everywhere;  and  thus  the 
whole  country  was  scourged  by  panic,  bank¬ 
ruptcy,  and  industrial  depression— the  effects 
of  which  had  not  disappeared  when  we  were 
plunged  into  Civil  War! 

Now  let  us  see  what  has  happened  abroad. 

In  1876  Mr.  Horace  White  wrote  a  notable  pa¬ 
per  for  The  Fortnightly  Review,  in  which  he  pre¬ 
sented  a  concise  review  of  the  causes  and  effects 
of  our  great  panic  of  1873.  In  this  paper  Mr. 
White  made  this  important  observation: 

“The  practical  exemption  of  France  from  the  financial  crises 
which  periodically  afflict  America,  England,  Germany,  and  the 
Scandinavian  countries,  deserves  our  attention.  Even  the  great 
financial  typhoon  of  1857,  which  swept  around  the  vrorld  and 
across  the  equator,  only  skirted  the  edges  of  France,  causing  a 
few  failures  in  Havre  and  Marseilles,  chiefly  in  the  American 
trade,  and  advancing  the  rate  of  discount  of  the  Bank  of  France 
for  a  short  time  to  10  per  cent.  For  all  practical  purposes  France 
was  in  the  centre  of  a  cyclone,  enjoying  a  calm,  while  the  rest  of 
the  civilized  world  was  strewn  with  every  species  of  commercial 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


269 


desolation.  And  such  has  been  her  position  in  the  crisis  of  1873, 
notwithstanding  the  payment  of  the  milliards  to  Germany.  Ger¬ 
many,  however,  the  recipient  of  the  milliards,  has  been  convulsed 
with  hard  times  and  mercantile  distress.  The  reason  is  simply 
that  the  Frenchman  is  very  little  addicted  to  going  in  debt,  very 
little  inclined  to  speculate,  and  very  much  given  to  hoarding  his 
gains.  Perhaps  he  does  not  get  rich  quite  so  fast  as  his  neighbor 
across  the  Channel,  but  on  the  other  hand  he  keeps  what  he  gets, 
and  generally  escapes  those  terrible  financial  crashes  that  smite 
the  Teutonic  and  Anglo-Saxon  countries  with  such  clockwork  reg¬ 
ularity.  The  Frenchman  seems  to  have  taken  to  heart  the  lesson 
taught  by  the  great  Mississippi  bubble,  to  keep  out  ot  mad  specu¬ 
lations.  Neither  the  Englishman  nor  his  offspring,  the  Ameri¬ 
can,  learned  anything  of  lasting  value  from  the  South  Sea  bubble 
or  the  score  of  bubbles  that  have  since  burst  at  different  times 
on  their  hands.  Nor  has  the  plodding  and  methodical  German, 
so  apt  a  scholar  in  many  directions,  learned  this  lesson,  although 
commended  to  him  by  frequent  and  severe  chastisement.  There 
is  no  mystery  whatever  in  the  healthy  condition  of  the  French 
finances  and  French  trade  since  the  payment  of  the  German  war 
indemnity.  France  habitually  holds  not  loss  than  £240,000,000 
sterling  of  the  precious  metals.  Such  a  reserve  of  the  most  realiz¬ 
able  property  known  to  commerce,  coupled  with  the  national  pru¬ 
dence  on  the  subject  of  debt,  and  the  national  habit  of  putting 
little  or  no  money  into  things  they  know  nothing  about,  very 
readily  accounts  for  the  practical  exemption  of  France  from  these 
sore  visitations.  It  is  an  encouraging  sign  of  the  times  that  the 
French  people  are  beginning  to  appreciate  their  high  position  in 
the  world  of  industry  and  commerce,  and  to  place  thrift,  in  which 
they  indubitably  excel,  in  the  balance  against  military  prowess,  in 
which  they  can  no  longer  claim  pre-eminence. 

*  <  In  conclusion  I  ask,  is  it  not  humiliating  that  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race,  who  have  achieved  so  much  in  the  way  of  conquering  nat¬ 
ural  obstacles,  subduing  the  earth,  civilizing  barbarous  tribes, 
establishing  free  institutions,  and  promoting  education,  cannot 
subsist  without  sowing  the  wind  and  reaping  the  whirlwind  of  a 
financial  crisis,  two  or  three  times  in  each  generation?  Is  it  not 
possible  for  the  English  speaking  people  (and  the  German-speak¬ 
ing  people  as  well)  to  perform  their  important  office  in  the  world 
without  bringing  upon  themselves  periodically  these  direful  vis- 


270  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

Rations?  Must  our  trade  degenerate  into  gambling  every  few 
years,  and  by  its  evil  consequences  plunge  great  multitudes  of 
innocent  people  into  the  depths  of  misery?  ” 

If  Mr.  White  had  been  writing  in  1903  instead 
of  1876;  and  if  he  had  spent  the  greater  part  of 
the  past  live  years  in  active  business  in  Europe 
as  I  have  done— I  am  quite  sure  he  would  modify 
his  statements  as  to  English  finance.  For  Brit¬ 
ain  long  ago  learned  the  secret  of  sound  money 
and  banking,  and  she  has  entirely  exempted  her¬ 
self  from  the  scourge  of  disastrous  and  pro¬ 
longed  financial  panics,  like  those  we  have  suf¬ 
fered.  Let  me  illustrate  by  personal  experience 
and  observation  abroad : 

It  was  the  Free  Silver  panic  of  1893,  repeated 
again  in  1896-97,  and  then  accompanied  by  wide¬ 
spread,  severe,  and  prolonged  industrial  depres¬ 
sion,  that  drove  me  to  London  to  establish  a  Eu¬ 
ropean  branch  of  my  publishing  business.  I  un¬ 
dertook  the  enterprise  most  reluctantly,  and  sole¬ 
ly  because  I  could  not  see  the  way  out  of  the 
grave  difficulties  into  which  the  Free  Silver  craze 
had  plunged  us.  Throughout  every  branch  of  in¬ 
dustry  confidence  had  been  so  severely  shaken 
that  constructive  enterprise  was  suffering  from 
paralysis;  and  the  only  American  manufacturers 
who  were  enjoying  any  measure  of  prosperity 
were  those  fortunate  enough  to  enjoy  an  enor¬ 
mous,  and  wholly  unexpected,  demand  from  Eu¬ 
rope  for  machinery  and  constructive  materials  of 
every  kind. 

When  I  landed  in  London  May  1,  1897,  I  was 
astonished  to  discover  that,  in  contrast  with  our 
widespread  and  alarming  depression,  all  Eu- 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


271 


rope,  especially  the  bankers,  merchants  and  man¬ 
ufacturers  of  England,  France,  Germany  and 
Belgium,  were  enjoying  a  period  of  the  most  un¬ 
exampled  prosperity  they  had  ever  known.  And 
their  prosperity  had  been  continuous  throughout 
the  whole  four  years  of  our  awful  panic  and  de¬ 
pression.  European  manufacturers  were  in  fact 
overwhelmed  with  business ;  and  it  was  chiefly 
because  they  were  actually  unable  to  fill  their  or¬ 
ders  that  the  agents  of  American  manufacturers 
were  then  doing  a  driving  trade.  Naturally,  I 
made  a  business  of  inquiring  closely  into  the 
causes  of  this  singular  contrast  in  conditions. 
The  results  of  all  my  inquiries  may  be  embodied 
in  the  concise  and  definite  statements  of  a  very 
able  American  engineer,  who  had  been  living  in 
London  for  fifteen  years,  and  who  had  built  up  a 
large  and  prosperous  business  as  the  European 
representative  of  several  leading  American  man¬ 
ufacturers  of  machinery.  Replying  to  my  in¬ 
quiries,  said  he:  “The  Free  Silver  men,  the 
Coxeyites  and  the  cranks  make  all  the  trouble  for 
you  at  home ;  but  we  in  England  never  have  any 
more  panics.  1Wb  trade  with  all  the  world,  and  if 
business  is  dull  in  one  country,  we  simply  push 
for  orders  somewhere  else.  Then  we  have  a  sin¬ 
gle  gold  standard,  A  Bank  of  England  note  is 
known  to  be  just  as  good  in  every  quarter  of  the 
world  as  it  is  right  here  in  London ;  and  bankers 
and  merchants  everywhere  clearly  understand 
that  when  an  Englishman  gives  an  obligation  lie 
not  only  expects  to  pay  it,  but  actually  pays  it  in 
gold ,  or  Bank  of  England  notes  which  are  re¬ 
deemable  in  gold.  ’  ’ 


272 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


4 4 But,’ ’  said  I,  “you  had  the  Baring  failure  of 
1890,  and  certainly  that  must  have  made  a  more 
serious  depression  here  than  it  did  with  us.” 

“  Not  a  bit  of  it,  ’  ’  said  he.  ‘  ‘  That  failure  made 
trouble  enough  for  the  Barings  and  a  few  bank¬ 
ers  and  investors  who  were  associated  with  them ; 
but  so  far  as  the  industry  and  commerce  of  Eng¬ 
land  were  concerned,  we  should  never  have 
known  there  was  a  failure  except  that  we  saw  it 
mentioned  in  the  newspapers.  The  fact  is  that 
we  never  have  any  panics;  and  it  is  the  stability 
of  the  British  government  and  the  security  which 
every  business  man  feels  that  makes  Britain  the 
richest,  most  powerful,  and  the  foremost  nation 
in  Europe.  ’  * 

Now,  this  gentleman  was  not  an  economist,  and 
he  made  no  pretense  of  being  a  student  of  politi¬ 
cal,  social,  and  industrial  problems.  But  he  was 
a  clear-headed  man  of  business;  his  work  had 
made  him  perfectly  familiar  with  European  con¬ 
ditions;  and  it  was  his  straightforward,  direct, 
and  common-sense  replies  to  all  my  inquiries 
which  first  revealed  to  me  the  fact  that  England 
had  actually  outgrown  financial  panics — and  can 
never  again  be  afflicted  by  them  so  long  as  she  ad¬ 
heres  to  Free  Trade  and  the  single  gold  standard. 

Since  that  time,  however,  we  have  seen  condi¬ 
tions  almost  exactly  reversed— but  only  so  far  as 
Germany  and  the  United  States  are  concerned. 
For  while  we  have  been  “booming,”  Germany— 
the  European  home  and  abiding  place  of  Protec¬ 
tion,  paternalism,  syndicates  and  Trusts— has 
been  echoing  doleful  tales  of  bank  failures,  over- 
capitalization,  receiverships,  and  alarming  fears 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


273 


of  industrial  depression.  But  Germany’s  rough 
experience  in  the  past  has  taught  her  the  wisdom 
of  holding  fast  to  the  gold  standard,  and  already, 
after  only  one  year  of  disaster  for  her  banks,  syn¬ 
dicates  and  combinations,  she  is  now  steadily  re¬ 
covering.  Meanwhile,  France,  Belgium  and 
Switzerland  have  been  moving  steadily  onward; 
and  proud  little  Albion — in  spite  of  the  great 
strike  of  1898,  in  spite  of  the  shock  and  chagrin 
of  the  Boer  War,  in  spite  of  the  enormous  burden 
of  the  new  war  debt,  in  spite  of  the  “  American 
peril”  and  the  deluge  of  cheap  raw  material  and 
cheap  manufactures  which  have  been  “ dumped” 
upon  her  open  markets — all  Britain  has  been 
busy  with  the  work  of  re-equipping  her  factories, 
re-organizing  her  methods,  solidifying  her 
world-wide  commercial  organization,  and  fear¬ 
lessly  selling  her  old  ships  and  antiquated  street 
railway  systems  to  American  bidders  who  pay 
far  more  than  a  full  price  for  them.  In  short,  the 
British  people  are  not  in  the  least  affrighted  by 
the  privilege  of  buying  raw  materials  and  manu¬ 
factures  cheaper  than  her  Protection  rivals  can 
buy  them  in  Germany  and  America ;  and  Britain 
has  not  the  remotest  notion  of  abandoning  the 
policy  of  Free  Trade  and  sound  money— for  they 
have  freed  her  from  the  scourge  of  panics,  and 
enriched  her  beyond  all  records  of  the  European 
past. 

People  marvel  that  prosperity  in  the  United 
States  should  go  on  and  on,  in  spite  of  the  abuses 
that  we  see  and  suffer ;  and  every  other  man  one 
meets  is  ready  with  a  prediction  that  it  cannot 
last— that  we  are  certain  to  have  another  panic. 


274  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

But  this  is  solely  because  capital  is  cowardly, 
moneyed  men  are  dominated  and  ruled  by  fear, 
and  very  few  men  take  time  to  read  and  recall  the 
past.  The  truth  is  that  fear  of  another  panic  is 
born  of  the  ravages  of  the  Free  Silver  fallacy 
which  we  have  so  recently  suffered ;  and  the  silly 
people  who  fear  panic  and  talk  panic,  are  simply 
playing  straight  into  the  hands  of  the  shrewd 
millionaires  who  are  ruling  us— chiefly  through 
fear ! 

“No  government  can  be  maintained  without 
the  principle  of  fear  as  well  as  of  duty.  Good 
men  will  obey  the  last,  but  bad  ones  the  former 
only.  ”  —Thomas  Jefferson. 

Carnegie,  Morgan  and  Rockefeller  understand 
their  business  perfectly.  They  are  not  in  the 
least  disturbed  by  silly  fears  of  another  panic; 
and  they  are  piling  up  millions  obviously  because 
they  do  and  dare  what  other  men  dread  and  fear 
to  do.  And  the  faith  that  enables  them  to  do  and 
dare,  is  born  of  the  knowledge  that  lasting  pros¬ 
perity  has  always  followed  hot  foot  upon  the 
heels  of  each  and  every  re-assertion  of  the  gold 
standard— in  all  American  history,  as  in  all  Eu¬ 
ropean  history. 

How  true  this  has  been  in  our  own  experience 
we  can  see  by  briefly  recalling  the  facts :  Imme¬ 
diately  upon  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution, 
with  its  unqualified  limitation  of  legal  money  to 
gold  and  silver,  the  country  bounded  into  an  era 
of  prosperity,  which  lasted  until  the  embargo  and 
the  War  of  1812  gave  us  a  temporary  check.  In 
1816,  when  Madison  prudently  granted  a  renewal 
of  the  Bank  charter  as  the  only  available  means 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


275 


of  defeating  the  popular  craze  for  State  banks 
and  paper  money— then  again  the  country 
bounded  into  prosperity  which  lasted  until  1832. 
Then  the  Bank  monopolists  brazenly  conspired 
with  the  advocates  of  Protection,  and  forced 
Jackson  to  the  necessity  for  overthrowing  the 
money  power  by  refusing  to  renew  the  trouble¬ 
breeding  charter  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States.  That  conspiracy  gave  us  State  banks; 
and  then  it  was  that  4  4  our  deluded  citizens,  clam¬ 
oring  for  more  banks,  more  banks,  ’  ’  had  their  in¬ 
nings  and  tried  to  their  fill  the  4  4  legerdemain 
tricks  on  paper”  which  were  4 4 to  turn  everything 
into  gold.”  But  the  great  panic  of  1837  opened 
the  eyes  of  the  people  to  the  perils  of  that  delu¬ 
sion;  and  when  the  State  banks,  through  sheer 
self-preservation,  were  forced  to  make  every  dol¬ 
lar  of  paper  money  4  4 as  good  as  gold”— then 
again  the  great  Republic  enjoyed  a  prolonged 
and  phenomenal  era  of  commercial,  industrial 
and  maritime  development.  Just  twenty  years 
after  the  panic  of  1837,  the  4 4 wild  cat”  and  4 4 red 
dog  ’ 9  paper  money  of  the  State  banks  once  more 
plunged  us  into  a  4 4 typhoon  of  panic”  in  1857. 
The  familiar,  simple,  and  always  effective  reme¬ 
dy — making  paper  money  4 4 as  good  as  gold” 
was  promptly  applied;  but  before  we  were  out 
of  the  trouble,  Slavery  and  secession,  now  in 
open  array  against  Protection  and  the  threat  of 
confiscation— plunged  us  into  the  Civil  War. 

But  the  lessons  of  1837  and  1857  were  not  lost. 
A  genius  among  men  was  now  at  the  post  of 
honor !  Salmon  P.  Chase  was  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  and  it  is  to  Chase  that  we  owe  the  one 


276  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

long  stride  in  constructive  statesmanship  that  we 
have  taken  since  the  Constitution  was  adopted. 
For  Chase  was  the  originator,  creator,  and  au¬ 
thor  of  our  national  banking  law;  and  it  is  that 
system  which  now  affords  us  an  easy  and  lasting 
solution  of  every  problem  that  perplexes  us  in 
banking  and  corporation  finance. 

Chase  well  knew,  and  repeatedly  said,  that  the 
national  government  had  no  legal  right  to  issue 
the  greenbacks.  But  the  power  of  the  Southern 
armies  forced  him  to  that  plain  violation  of  the 
Constitution,  as  a  means  of  saving  the  Union; 
and  promptly,  when  he  became  Chief  Justice  af¬ 
ter  the  War— to  his  everlasting  honor  be  it  said 
—he  put  the  Supreme  Court  on  record  in  his  fa¬ 
mous  decision  declaring  the  greenbacks  unconsti¬ 
tutional.  He  was  misunderstood  and  roundly 
abused  at  the  time;  but  his  head  was  clear,  his 
faith  was  firm,  he  saw  his  duty,  and  he  did  it— 
with  a  heroism  which  genius  alone  can  inspire ! 

It  is  needless  to  recite  anew  the  ravages  of  the 
greenback  craze  between  1873  and  1879,  or  the 
worse  penalties  that  we  paid  for  the  Free  Silver 
delusion  between  1893  and  1899.  It  is  only  neces¬ 
sary  to  say  that  the  fruitful  cause,  the  complete 
explanation,  of  the  prosperity  we  have  enjoyed 
since  1899,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
American  people,  by  overwhelming  majorities, 
have  twice  voted  for  the  single  gold  standard— 
have  twice  voted  for  honest  money— have  twice 
voted  for  the  best  money  in  the  world!  This  is 
the  very  basis,  the  secure  foundation,  of  that 
boundless  faith  in  our  industrial  future  which  all 
the  world  now  plainly  manifests.  For  econo- 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


277 


mists,  statesmen,  and  financiers  everywhere  long 
ago  learned  that  money  is  the  life-blood  of  com¬ 
merce  and  industry ;  and  to  keep  it  pure,  to  give 
it  free,  natural,  and  unimpeded  circulation,  is  not 
alone  the  prime  essential  to  industrial  health— it 
is  the  very  noblest  work  to  which  statesmen  can 
address  themselves. 

Back  in  1894  while  the  panic  was  raging  and 
the  process  of  educating  the  people  was  under 
way,  I  wrote  a  magazine  article  from  which  I  am 
prompted  to  make  an  extract  here,  that  we  may 
get  back  to  the  point  of  view  at  that  time.  In 
December,  1894, 1  said: 

‘  ‘  It  requires  no  prophet  to  foresee  that  the  question  which  must 
dominate  all  others  in  public  interest  during  the  coming  twelve 
months,  is  that  of  reforming  the  polyglot  system  of  currency  and 
banking  under  which  the  commerce  and  industry  of  the  United 
States  are  now  struggling.  .  .  .  Back  of  the  Populist  demand 
for  *  more  money f  and  ‘  cheap  money  ’ ;  back  of  the  sentiment 
favorable  to  silver  coinage  upon  some  safe  basis;  and  back  of 
the  unrest  and  discontent  which  are  manifest  in  all  parties,  there 
is  the  definite  knowledge  that  our  present  currency  system  is  both 
complicated  and  defective,— that  at  certain  seasons  it  is  inade¬ 
quate  to  commercial  requirements,  and  in  times  of  panic  posi¬ 
tively  dangerous  to  the  welfare  of  our  people.  This  is  the  vital 
defect  which  gives  plausibility  to  all  the  financial  vagaries  now 
prevalent;  and  whatever  sins  may  be  charged  against  the  silver 
inflationists  and  the  fiat  money  cranks,  they  must  be  credited 
with  having  finally  aroused  the  conservatism  of  the  country  to  a 
clear  appreciation  of  the  fact  that  financial  reform  is  an  impera¬ 
tive  need.  The  wholesale  issue  of  clearing-house  certificates,  the 
widespread  use  of  certified  checks  in  place  of  money,  and  the 
premium,  not  on  gold  alone,  but  on  currency  as  well — these  are 
object  lessons  in  finance  which  have  brought  home  to  every  man 
the  obvious  truth  that  our  currency  system  is  defective,  and  that 
it  lacks  the  essential  quality  of  being  readily  expanded  or  con¬ 
tracted  to  meet  perfectly  legitimate  requirements.  ’ 1 


278  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

Then  again  in  the  spring  of  1896,  as  the  Presi¬ 
dential  campaign  was  approaching,  I  published 
another  paper  in  which  I  said  what  follows.  Ev¬ 
ery  word  of  it  applies  to  the  situation  today,  pre¬ 
cisely  as  it  applied  seven  years  ago ;  for  with  the 
exception  of  the  gold  standard  law,  which  we 
finally  forced  the  Trust  promoters  to  enact  in 
March,  1900,  not  one  move  has  been  made 
towards  giving  simplicity,  elasticity,  and  stabil¬ 
ity  to  our  money  and  banking  system.  In  March, 
1896, 1  said : 

‘  ‘  In  both  houses  of  Congress,  and  notably  in  the  Senate,  there 
are  blatant  demagogues  who  wantonly  proclaim  doctrines  which 
they  know  to  be  false ;  but  in  the  Senate,  as  well  as  in  the  House, 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  congressmen  who  stand  for 
silver  coinage  or  uphold  the  greenback,  are  sincerely  convinced 
that  they  are  right.  They  see  that  something  is  radically  wrong, 
and  they  are  simply  following  their  best  lights  in  the  effort  to 
solve  the  problem.  More  than  this,  they  know  that  in  thus  uphold¬ 
ing  honest  convictions  they  represent  the  sentiments  of  their  peo¬ 
ple.  In  truth,  the  only  kind  of  money  that  the  present  generation 
has  learned  anything  about  is  government  money  and  silver 
money,  with  an  occasional  glimpse  of  gold.  It  is  logically  neces¬ 
sary,  therefore,  that  they  should  believe  in  the  money  which  for 
thirty  years  they  have  been  using;  and  though  they  are  in  error 
as  to  the  true  principles  of  finance,  they  are  manifestly  honest  in 
the  theories  which  they  uphold.  Nor  does  this  condition  of  pub¬ 
lic  opinion  apply  merely  to  a  minority.  The  candid  man  must 
admit  that  the  majority  of  our  people  believe  that  the  govern¬ 
ment  should  issue  our  money,  and  many  believe  that  the  silver 
men  have  an  element  of  honest  truth  in  their  platform.  But  with 
that  conservatism  which  is  the  bulwark  of  free  institutions,— 
which  makes  it  always  safe  to  trust  the  people, — a  square  halt 
has  been  called.  The  voters  wrill  not  permit  any  additional  coin¬ 
age  of  silver,  and  already  they  are  in  the  attitude  of  waiting  for 
further  information  concerning  greenbacks  and  government 
money  generally.  This  is  undoubtedly  true  of  the  people,  and  it 
is  notably  true  of  their  honest  leaders.  In  all  the  pages  of  politi- 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION, 


279 


cal  history  a  more  heroic  example  of  loyalty  to  plain  duty  and 
honest  conviction  has  not  been  written  than  in  the  frank  decla¬ 
ration  of  Senator  Roger  Q.  Mills,  of  Texas,  that  he  regards  it  as 
impossible  for  this  country  alone  to  establish  the  free  coinage  of 
silver. 

“To  the  thoughtful  man  it  must  be  apparent,  then,  that  the 
paramount  duty  of  this  hour  is  to  teach  sound  principles  of 
finance,— to  spread  the  light  to  the  people  who  are  waiting  for  it. 
This  is  a  duty  which  rests,  not  upon  our  representatives  in  Con¬ 
gress,  or  some  special  set  of  men  who  comprehend  the  whole 
science  of  finance,  but  it  rests  equally  upon  all  men  of  intelli¬ 
gence  and  influence.  It  should  find  expression  in  private  conver¬ 
sation,  in  business  correspondence,  through  the  columns  of  the 
newspaper  press,  in  the  pages  of  the  magazines  and  reviews,  es¬ 
pecially  through  the  medium  of  commercial  exchanges,  boards  of 
trade,  and  chambers  of  commerce,  and,  more  important  than  all 
else,  the  demand  for  a  sound  currency  and  a  civilized  system  of 
banking  should  be  made  so  manifest  at  every  political  convention 
between  now  and  next  fall,  that  when  the  voters  come  to  the  polls 
for  the  presidential  election  in  November  next,  there  shall  be 
absolutely  no  mistake  as  to  the  demand  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  for  the  best  money  and  the  best  banking  system 
that  the  world  affords.  ’  ’ 

In  1895  Mr.  Horace  White  wrote  and  published 
a  little  book  entitled  “Money  and  Banking” 
which  is  by  all  odds  the  finest  work  ever  yet 
penned  upon  the  money  question  as  it  exists  in 
the  United  States.  And  this  strong  statement  is 
true  because  he  treats  the  subject  historically— 
that  is  to  say,  he  gives  the  unvarnished  facts  as  to 
each  and  all  our  varied  experiments  with  paper 
money.  His  masterly  array  of  stubborn  facts 
cleared  my  head  of  all  confusion  and  doubt— just 
as  it  will  clear  the  head  of  every  man  who  is  puz¬ 
zled  by  the  money  question ;  and  for  that  reason 


280 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


I  strongly  recommend  the  book  to  young  men  of 
political  ambition  who  need  to  know  the  history 
of  our  money  question.* 

In  this  little  book,  in  exposing  the  fundamental 
fallacy  of  money  issued  by  a  government,  Mr. 
White  declares  that  “the  greatest  objection  of  all 
to  fiat  money  is  that  it  teaches  people  to  believe 
lies.  It  creates  the  belief  that  the  government 
can  make  money — that  is,  real,  not  representa¬ 
tive,  money  than  which  a  more  damaging  lie 
never,  gained  lodgment  in  the  human  brain.” 
This  is  true,  but  it  is  an  incomplete  statement. 
Another  damaging  influence  which  must  be 
charged  against  fiat  money,  is  that  it  teaches  peo¬ 
ple  to  believe  that  the  banks  should  not  be  per¬ 
mitted  to  issue  representative,  or  paper,  money. 
The  belief  is  wide-spread  throughout  the  United 
States  that  the  privilege  of  issuing  money  is  a 
very  valuable  one ;  that  the  banks  are  anxious  to 
secure  and  control  it  for  their  private  profit ;  and 
that  the  Government  should  protect  the  people 
against  the  “soulless  money  changers”  who  de¬ 
sign  to  charge  a  profit  for  the  use  of  what  should 
be  “the  people’s  money.”  Of  all  the  stupid  fal¬ 
lacies  that  have  ever  gained  currency  surely  this 
is  the  most  senseless  and  the  most  damaging. 

As  a  rule  a  bank ’s  capital  and  surplus  are 
about  represented  by  the  cash  reserve  which  it 
must  at  all  times  keep  in  its  vaults  in  order  to  do 
a  safe  banking  business.  Hence  it  follows  that 
banking  income  and  banking  profits  are  derived 


*Mr.  White  has  since  (in  1902)  published  a  "  Revised  Edition  ”  of  this 
invaluable  little  work,  in  the  form  of  a  text  book  for  colleKe  student 

general6 reader.  edit‘°n’  °f  1885’  is  the  on9  1  commend  to  the 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


281 


almost  wholly  from  deposits ,  which  are  loaned- 
out  at  interest.  In,  proof  of  this  I  need  only  cite 
the  fact  that  on  June  30,  1902,  the  total  depos¬ 
its  of  our  national,  state,  private,  and  savings 
banks,  and  loan  and  trust  companies,  aggregated 
$9,104,722,986;  while  the  national  bank  notes  then 
in  circulation  were  only  $345,205,836. 

If  the  greenbacks  ($346,600,000)  and  the  Treas¬ 
ury  notes  ($30,000,000)  should  now  be  converted 
into  national  bank  currency,  the  aggregate  of 
bank-note  circulation  would  still  be  only  $721,- 
805,836 ;  or  considerably  less  than  one-twelfth  of 
the  vast  sums  of  money  which  depositors  gladly 
commit  to  the  care  of  bankers— to  be  used  for 
their  individual  profit— in  return  for  the  security, 
the  accommodation,  and  the  convenience  which 
the  banks  afford. 

This  is  so  obvious  a  demonstration  of  the 
source  of  banking  profits  that  one  marvels  at  the 
widespread  popular  notion  that  bankers  are 
eager  for  the  privilege  of  issuing  money,  and  that 
such  a  privilege  should  be  denied  them.  The 
truth  is  that  for  years  past  our  national  bank  cir¬ 
culation  has  been  unprofitable  to  the  banks ;  and 
under  any  possible  or  approved  system,  the  nec¬ 
essary  outlay  of  capital  to  provide  security  for 
the  notes,  and  the  cost  of  supervision  and  insur¬ 
ance  against  loss,  must  make  the  net  profit  on 
bank-note  circulation  a  very  slender  one  at  best. 
But  the  issue  of  money  is  a  natural  and  indispen¬ 
sable  feature  of  a  sound  banking  system,  for  the 
essential  reason  that  the  people  make  known 
their  money  requirements  through  the  banks. 
The  banker  is,  therefore,  the  only  man  in  a  posi- 


282 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


tion  to  decide  promptly  and  intelligently  as  to 
whether  or  not  money  is  required  for  legitimate 
business  transactions.  His  self-interest  will  in¬ 
duce  him  to  supply  it  when  needed  by  responsible 
borrowers;  the  cost  of  issuing  it  will  force  him 
to  retire  it  when  no  longer  needed;  and  not  until 
we  secure  this  automatic  adjustment  of  currency 
issues,  through  the  banks,  can  we  hope  for  that 
even  course  of  business  which  is  so  indispensable 
to  peace  and  prosperity. 

The  late  George  S.  Coe,  the  distinguished  in¬ 
ventor  of  the  Clearing  House  Certificate,  has 
clearly  shown  that  “the  real  currency  of  com¬ 
merce  ”  is  made  up  of  bank  credits,  with  the 
checks,  notes,  drafts,  and  bills  of  exchange  which 
are  based  upon  them.  If  this  fact  can  ever  be 
driven  home  to  the  comprehension  of  our  ten 
thousand  philosophers  of  inflation,  the  money 
question  will  settle  itself  in  short  order.  Simply 
afford  adequate  banking  facilities  to  the  farmer, 
the  village  manufacturer,  the  artisan,  and  the 
small  tradesman ;  give  him  a  credit  in  bank  and  a 
check  book  to  make  that  credit  available ;  and  he 
will  soon  learn  that  actual  money  plays  a  very 
small  part  in  the  transaction  of  business, — he 
will  learn  what  the  Clearing-Houses  have  taught 
the  people  of  our  large  cities  long  ago,  namely: 
that  of  all  the  stupendous  aggregates  of  modern 
business  transactions,  less  than  $1  in  every  $20  is 
represented  by  the  use  of  actual  money. 

The  plain  truth  is,  that  panic  of  1893  was  born 
of  the  most  astonishing  array  of  legislation  upon 
finance  and  banking  that  has  ever  been  enact¬ 
ed  in  the  history  of  any  civilized  people. 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


283 


That  my  readers  may  clearly  comprehend 
the  net  results  of  this  legislation,  and  that  we 
may  now  see  the  danger  of  permitting  poli¬ 
ticians  to  meddle  with  our  money  circulation, 
let  me  here  reproduce  an  extract  from  a  speech 
of  Prof.  J.  Lawrence  Loughlin,  delivered  in 
Chicago  in  October,  1894.  The  status  of  our 
money  circulation  at  that  time,  and  now,  has 
never  anywhere  been  more  concisely  presented, 
or  more  appropriately  characterized.  To  illus¬ 
trate  the  heterogeneous  character  of  our  money, 
he  presented  the  following  official  statement 
showing  its  component  parts  on  October  1,  1894 
—beside  which  I  give  the  corresponding  official 
figures  for  March  1,  1903,  to  show  that  “the  dime 
museum  of  finance  ’  ’  is  still  with  us : 


Money  in  Circulation. 

Oct.,  1894. 

March,  1903. 

Gold  coin  . 

$500,126,248 

$625,262,655 

Gold  certificates . 

64,790,439 

373,132,044 

Silver  dollars  . 

54,276,243 

75,151,254 

Subsidiary  silver . 

58,244,768 

91,990,343 

Silver  certificates . 

330,520,719 

457,154,583 

Treasury  notes  (1890) . 

121,495,374 

22,125,099 

United  States  notes  (green¬ 
backs)  . 

267,283,481 

342,392,793 

Currency  certificates . 

55,755,000 

National  bank  notes . 

202,546,710 

366,787,559 

Total  . 

$1,655,038,982 

$2,353,996,330 

Commenting  on  this  exhibit  in  1894  Prof. 
Loughlin  said: 

/ 

“We  have  here  a  dime  museum  of  finance,— ‘the  greatest  ag¬ 
gregation  of  curiosities  ever  before  exhibited  under  one  canvas 
in  the  world.  ’  There  are  nine  different  and  confusing  kinds  of 
money— two  kinds  of  gold  money,  four  kinds  of  silver  money, 


284 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


and  three  kinds  of  paper  money.  The  sum  total  of  the  four  kinds 
of  silver  money  amounts  to  about  the  same  as  the  sum  of  the 
two  kinds  of  gold  money.  Briefly,  about  35  per  cent,  is  gold,  35 
per  cent,  is  silver,  and  30  per  cent,  is  paper.  ...  If  any¬ 
thing  should  make  us  pause  and  deliberate  on  the  ways  of  regu¬ 
lating  our  monetary  system,  it  would  be  that  the  loud-voiced, 
blatant  demagogue  is  allowed  to  have  unimpeded  influence  in 
regulating  such  an  intricate  mechanism  as  this.  ’  ’ 

Now  to  reduce  this  “dime  museum  of  finance ” 
to  such  simplicity  that  a  school  boy  can  under¬ 
stand  the  problem,  it  is  only  necessary  to  learn 
what  Mr.  Horace  White  has  taught  with  patriotic 
zeal  and  persistence,  namely :  that  there  are  only 
two  kinds  of  money,  and  there  can  never,  under 
any  circumstances,  be  more  than  two  kinds : 

(1)  Real  Money. 

(2)  Representative  Money. 

Real  money  is  now  gold— the  solid,  genuine 
bullion,  which  sells  anywhere  and  everywhere  by 
weight  and  fineness,  regardless  of  how  it  may  be 
coined  or  stamped.  The  United  States  coins  it 
into  multiples  of  dollars ;  Great  Britain  coins  it 
into  sovereigns  and  half-sovereigns;  France  and 
Germany  coin  it  into  multiples  of  francs  or 
marks ;  and  every  other  big  and  little  government 
under  the  sun  coins  and  stamps  it  in  a  way  that 
approximates  the  system  of  the  larger  nations. 
To  get  rid  of  the  medley  and  confusion  in  coin¬ 
age,  to  give  international  commerce  a  real  money 
—common  to  all  countries  and  acceptable  every¬ 
where— merchants  and  bankers  the  world  over 
have  swept  aside  all  these  patriotic  attempts  at 
individual  coinage,  and  they  simply  weigh  the 
gold  and  accept  payment  according  to  the  actual 
weight  and  fineness  of  the  genuine  metal.  The 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


285 


honest  silver  enthusiasts  fairly  broke  their 
hearts  over  the  theory  that  silver  was  “the 
money  of  the  Constitution,  ’  9  and  that  it  was  a 
“crime”  for  us  to  demonetize  it.  But  it  was  Jef¬ 
ferson  who  gave  us  our  coinage  system;  it  was 
Jefferson  who  gave  us  “the  money  of  the  Consti¬ 
tution;”  and  it  was  Jefferson  who  wrote  this  in 
1784— and  kept  on  writing  and  believing  it  to  the 
end  of  his  days : 

“The  proportion  between  the  values  of  gold  and  silver  is  a 
mercantile  problem  altogether.  The  legal  proportion  in  Spain  is 
16  for  1;  in  England  15%  for  1;  in  France  15  for  1.  Just  prin¬ 
ciples  will  lead  us  to  disregard  legal  proportions  altogether;  to 
enquire  into  the  market  price  of  gold  in  the  several  countries 
with  which  we  shall  principally  be  connected  in  commerce,  and 
to  take  an  average  from  them.  ’  ’ 

In  other  words,  Jefferson  saw  what  every  man 
in  the  Constitutional  Convention  plainly  saw,  and 
what  disaster  and  panic  have  now  pounded  into 
the  heads  of  an  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
American  people,  namely— that  gold  was,  and  is, 
the  single  standard  of  all  values ;  and  it  is  utterly 
beyond  the  power  of  statutes  or  constitutions, 
past,  present,  or  future,  to  make  anything  else 
real  money.  Wampum  was  real  money  when 
our  chief  trade  was  with  the  Indians;  tobac¬ 
co  was  real  money  in  Colonial  days  when 
our  chief  trade  was  with  England  and  France; 
and  ‘  ‘  among  the  things  used  as  money  by  various 
people  within  the  historical  period  are  cacao 
beans,  salt,  silk,  furs,  dried  fish,  wheat,  rice, 
olive  oil,  cocoanut  oil,  cotton  cloth,  cowrie 
shells,  iron,  copper,  platinum,  nickel,  silver  and 
gold.”  Gold  is  now  the  real  money  of  our  for- 


286 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


eign  and  domestic  commerce ;  the  American  peo¬ 
ple  clearly  understand  the  fact ;  and  it  is  full  time 
for  free  silver  enthusiasts  to  sober  themselves 
with  the  reflection  that  “a  wise  man  changes  his 
opinions— a  fool,  never !” 

And  what  is  Representative  Money! 

Every  copper  penny,  every  five-cent  nickel,  ev¬ 
ery  silver  dime,  every  silver  dollar,  and  each  and 
every  scrap  of  paper  money  that  we  see  and  han¬ 
dle  daily,  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  Represent¬ 
ative  Money— that  is,  it  represents  gold.  And  it 
is  neither  good  money  nor  safe  money  unless  it 
can  be  redeemed  in  gold  on  demand  at  any  bank 
in  the  United  States.  With  these  obvious  facts 
in  mind,  the  thing  needful  to  bring  order  out  of 
confusion,  to  substitute  simplicity  for  puzzling 
complexity,  and  to  give  us  a  money  system  which 
a  child  can  understand,  is  that  our  national  bank¬ 
ing  law  shall  now  be  amended  so  that : 

(1)  In  addition  to  government  bonds,  the 
Treasury  shall  accept  as  security  for  bank  notes 
issued  by  the  national  banks,  State  and  munici¬ 
pal  bonds  (of  cities  numbering  100,000  popula¬ 
tion  or  more)  as  well  as  the  bonds  of  leading  rail¬ 
road  systems  to  be  designated  in  the  law.  This  is 
absolutely  necessary,  because  the  national  debt 
is  being  so  rapidly  reduced  that  within  a  very  few 
years  the  government  bonds  will  be  insufficient 
for  the  purpose.  And  the  day  has  gone  by  for 
questioning  the  value  of  first  class  State,  munici¬ 
pal  and  standard  railroad  bonds.  They  are  the 
best  securities  known— and  will  steadily  get  bet¬ 
ter.  More  than  this,  Mr.  Chase’s  sole  object  in 
originally  limiting  bank  note  securities  to  gov- 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


287 


eminent  bonds,  was  to  make  a  demand  for  the 
bonds — to  aid  in  the  then  difficult  task  of  raising 
money  with  which  to  prosecute  the  war ;  for  our 
national  bank  law  was  enacted  in  1863-4,  when 
government  bonds  were  selling  at  an  enormous 
discount.  The  limitation  was  wise  then,  but  it  is 
senseless  now. 

(2)  The  national  banks,  being  under  strict  su¬ 
pervision,  should  have  the  right  to  issue  bank 
notes  to  the  full  face  value  of  these  bonds,  the 
Comptroller  of  the  Currency  being  armed  with 
authority  to  promptly  demand  additional  securi¬ 
ties  when  market  values  decline.  And  beyond 
this,  the  tax  upon  bank  note  circulation,  in  addi¬ 
tion  to  covering  the  cost  of  printing,  supervision, 
and  bank  examination,  should  also  provide  an  in¬ 
surance  fund  against  any  possible  loss  through 
bank  failures. 

(3)  Every  national  bank  should  be  required  to 
redeem  its  bank  notes  in  gold  on  demand.  To 
that  end,  the  law  should  provide  that  every  na¬ 
tional  bank  should  at  all  times  carry  in  its  vaults, 
as  part  of  its  legal  reserve,  gold  coin  equal  to  at 
least  25  per  cent,  of  its  bank  note  issues.  That 
would  keep  the  gold  in  the  bank  reserves— where 
it  belongs,  and  where  it  can  be  ten,  twenty,  or  fif¬ 
ty  times  more  useful  than  in  any  other  way. 
For  people  greatly  prefer  to  use  paper  money  in 
large  denominations,  because  it  is  incomparably 
more  convenient ;  and  they  will  never  bother  with 
handling  weighty  sums  of  gold— provided  al¬ 
ways  that  they  are  absolutely  sure  of  getting  the 
gold  on  demand. 

(4)  Every  time  a  greenback  is  presented  at 


288  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

the  national  Treasury,  it  should  be  instantly  re¬ 
deemed  in  gold — and  then  promptly  burned  to 
powder.  In  place  of  the  greenback  the  gold 
would  then  pass  into  actual  circulation  and  be¬ 
come  the  secure  basis  of  our  bank  reserves  and 
bank  notes — instead  of  lying  idle  and  useless  in 
the  Treasury,  as  it  now  does.  The  governments 
gold  reserve  would  thus  gradually  pass  into  ac¬ 
tual  circulation.  Then  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  should  be  authorized  to  sell  gold  bonds, 
and  use  all  surplus  revenue,  in  sufficient  amount 
to  retire  the  remainder  of  the  greenbacks  in  like 
manner.  We  need  not  trouble  ourselves  in  the 
least  over  any  possible  “contraction  of  the 
currency.  ”  The  natural  and  inevitable  increase 
of  national  bank  notes  would  far  more  than  fill 
the  gap,  for  of  course  retirement  of  the  trouble¬ 
breeding  greenbacks  would  be  gradual  and  auto¬ 
matic. 

(5)  The  gold  certificates  should  be  immediate¬ 
ly  called  in,  the  gold  they  represent  being  issued 
in  place  of  them.  And  the  government  should 
retire  forever  from  the  business  of  storing  gold 
and  issuing  certificates  which  pass  as  money — 
obviously  because  money  of  that  kind  breeds  the 
perilous  delusion  that  the  government  has  power 
to  issue  paper  money.  The  government  has  no 
such  power,  and  the  Constitution  specifically  pro¬ 
hibits  it. 

(6)  The  Silver  Certificates  should  be  steadily 
retired  from  circulation  by  the  simple  process  of 
issuing  the  silver  dollars  in  place  of  them — pre¬ 
cisely  as  the  confusing  Treasury  Notes  are  already 
in  process  of  retirement.  These  Treasury  Notes 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


289 


were  issued  under  the  Silver  Bill  of  1890— which 
precipitated  the  panic  of  1893— in  payment  for 
silver  bullion  to  be  stored  in  the  Treasury.  That 
stupid  performance  was  in  some  measure  set 
right  by  the  law  providing  that,  as  the  Treasury 
Notes  were  presented,  the  bullion  should  be 
coined  and  the  silver  dollars  themselves  put  in 
circulation.  If  now  the  Silver  Certificates  be  re¬ 
tired  as  rapidly  as  the  silver  dollars  can  be 
forced  into  circulation;  if  every  needed  increase 
in  our  subsidiary  silver  coin  be  met  by  canceling 
Silver  Certificates  and  coining  the  silver  dollars 
into  dimes,  quarters  and  half  dollars;  and  if  we 
have  the  good  sense  to  provide  the  Philippines, 
Hawaii,  and  Porto  Rico  with  silver  money  from 
our  surplus  stores— within  the  course  of  a  com¬ 
paratively  few  years  the  Silver  Certificates  will 
have  disappeared,  and  the  silver  itself,  now  lying 
idle  in  the  Treasury,  will  become  part  of  our  ac¬ 
tual  money  circulation.  The  notion  that  the  sil¬ 
ver  dollars  are  ‘  ‘  unpopular ’ ’  is  simple  nonsense. 
Identically  the  same  notion  prevailed  when,  after 
the  war,  we  were  pestered  with  the  disease-breed¬ 
ing  “shinplasters,”  in  the  form  of  paper  dimes, 
quarters  and  half  dollars.  Nobody  would  now 
think  of  going  back  to  them  again;  and  so  it 
would  be  with  the  silver  dollars.  Simply  stop  is¬ 
suing  the  one-  and  two-dollar  silver  certificates; 
make  five  dollars  the  smallest  bank  note;  and 
within  a  few  years  people  will  wonder  how  we 
could  have  been  foolish  enough  to  endanger  the 
public  health  and  confuse  the  minds  of  the  people 
with  ‘ ‘ greenback’ 9  silver  certificates. 

(7)  Finally,  the  law  should  specifically  pro- 


290 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


vide  that  all  national  bank  notes  now  in  use 
should  be  replaced  gradually  and  steadily  by  new 
ones,  on  the  face  of  which  should  be  engraved  in 
bold  letters  the  conspicuous  statement  that  the 
bank  of  issue  will  pay  the  full  face  of  the  note  in 
gold  on  demand .  The  educational  value  of  that 
statement  upon  every  bank  note  would  be  simply 
priceless  and  incalculable !  It  would  make  an  end 
forever  of  the  “ government  money”  delusion, 
which  has  cost  us  two  prolonged  and  awful  pan¬ 
ics  since  the  Civil  War;  and  beyond  that,  it  would 
steadily  teach  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the 
nation  the  vital  truth  that  a  bank  note  is  not  real 
money,  but  a  mere  promise  to  pay  real  money  on 
demand. 

These  changes  are  all  simple,  logical,  harmless, 
and  imperatively  necessary.  If  we  insist  upon 
them,  and  keep  on  insisting  until  they  are  made, 
we  should  then  have  (1),  gold  and  silver  as  the 
obvious  basis  of  our  money  system— actual  coin 
being  the  only  money  issued  by  the  government , 
as  the  Constitution  specifically  provides ;  and  (2), 
within  a  few  years  national  bank  notes  should  be 
the  only  paper  money  that  the  people  could  ever 
see .  And  every  dollar  of  that  paper  money 
should  be  redeemable  in  gold  on  demand,  not  by 
the  government,  but  by  the  banks  which  issue  it — 
precisely  as  the  Bank  of  England,  the  Bank  of 
Fiance,  and  the  Imperial  Bank  of  Germany  are 
now  required  to  redeem  in  gold  every  piece  of  pa¬ 
per  money  that  the  English,  French  and  German 
people  use. 

In  the  light  of  these  logical  and  obviously  nec¬ 
essary  changes,  we  can  now  adequately  appreci- 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION.  291 

ate  the  priceless  public  service  that  Salmon  P. 
Chase  rendered  us  in  originating  and  sturdily  in¬ 
sisting  upon  the  adoption  of  our  present  national 
banking  system. 

Mr.  Chase  encountered  the  greatest  difficulty  in 
establishing  the  national  banks,  first,  through  the 
opposition  of  all  our  leading  bankers,  who  feared 
that  the  now-familiar  bank  examinations  and 
published  statements  would  reveal  the  secrets  of 
their  business ;  and  next,  from  the  opposition  of 
the  greenbackers  and  the  believers  in  State 
bank  notes,  who  honestly  feared  that  the  new  sys¬ 
tem  would  inevitably  result  in  another  dangerous 
monopoly  of  the  money  and  banking  facilities  of 
the  people.  But  after  forty  years  experience  we 
now  see  the  system  firmly  rooted  in  the  confi¬ 
dence  and  approval  of  the  whole  people.  It  af¬ 
fords  every  advantage  that  a  great  central  bank, 
with  numerous  branches  scattered  in  every  part 
of  the  country  can  offer;  and  it  entails  none  of 
the  proved  perils  of  a  formidable  institution  of 
that  character.  The  little  banks  are  in  reality 
branches  of  the  big  banks,  for  through  the  Clear¬ 
ing  Houses,  and  through  direct  and  voluntary 
correspondence,  they  all  co-operate  under  the 
same  system.  But  each  bank  is  absolutely  inde¬ 
pendent  of  all  the  others  in  the  management  of 
its  own  affairs ;  and  whether  the  capital  be  $25,- 
000  or  $25,000,000,  they  are  all  alike  subject  to 
the  same  examination,  the  same  necessary  publi¬ 
cation  of  statements,  and  the  same  definite  limita¬ 
tions  as  to  issuing  bank  notes.  The  government, 
instead  of  engaging  in  the  banking  business,  sim¬ 
ply  performs  the  legitimate  governmental  func- 


292  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

tion  of  protecting  property— that  is,  it  requires 
the  deposit  of  bonds  to  secure  the  payment  of  the 
bank  notes,  it  examines  the  books  periodically  to 
make  sure  that  the  bank  is  sound  and  its  business 
being  prudently  and  honestly  conducted,  and  it 
requires  the  publication  of  statements  in  the  local 
newspapers  for  the  information  of  depositors 
and  the  people  at  large. 

The  advantages  of  the  system  for  attracting 
and  holding  depositors  is  very  aptly  illustrated 
by  the  following  advertisement,  which  a  small 
bank  in  a  suburban  village  near  New  York  now 
regularly  displays  in  the  local  newspapers,  as  a 
means  of  meeting  the  competition  of  a  new  trust 
company— lately  established  in  the  town  to  do  a 
banking,  as  well  as  a  trust  company,  business : 


THE  CITIZENS’  NATIONAL  BANK. 

SPECIAL  ADVANTAGES  IT  AFFORDS  ARE: 

THAT  it  offers  as  security  all  the  safeguards  of  the 
National  Banking  Act. 

IHAP  it  only  does  a  Banking  Business. 

THAT  Stockholders  are  liable  for  an  amount  equal  to  its 
Capital. 

d  HAT  it  is  restricted  as  to  the  amount  it  can  loan  to 
any  one  party. 

THAT  it  is  limited  by  law  as  to  the  nature  of  its  invest¬ 
ments. 

THAT  without  notice  it  is  examined  from  time  to  time 
by  the  United  States  Examiner. 

THAT  five  times  a  year  reports  are  called  for  of  the 
condition  of  the  Bank  at  some  preceding  date, 
without  any  previous  notice,  and  the  report  is 
sworn  to  and  published. 

THAT  it  is  always  required  to  keep  in  Cash  in  the  Bank 
a  certain  percentage  of  its  deposits. 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


293 


In  brief,  our  national  banking  system  is  mod¬ 
eled  closely  after  our  Federal  system  of  govern¬ 
ment.  Like  the  States,  counties,  townships,  and 
cities,  the  banks  enjoy  “ local  self-government, ’ ’ 
having  entire  charge  of  their  own  affairs.  But  the 
Federal  government  stands  over  them  to  pre¬ 
serve  order,  to  protect  property  rights,  and  to 
see  that  the  interstate  commerce  of  the  whole 
people  is  not  endangered  by  the  issue  of  irre¬ 
deemable  paper  money.  Forty  years  of  experi¬ 
ence  have  demonstrated  the  unrivaled  merit  of 
the  system ;  the  wit  of  man  has  never  yet  devised 
a  more  perfect  system;  and  it  will  endure  for  ages 
— just  so  surely  as  liberty  survives  and  free  men 
continue  to  govern  themselves  under  federated 
and  representative  political  institutions. 

And  as  the  system  is  perfect  in  its  adaptation 
to  our  needs,  so  our  national  bank  note  is  the  most 
perfect  form  of  paper  money  that  the  world  has 
ever  seen— obviously  because,  so  long  as  market¬ 
able  bonds  are  deposited  to  secure  the  full  pay¬ 
ment  of  every  note  issued,  we  can  safely  permit 
little  banks  and  big  banks  to  expand  and  con¬ 
tract  the  currency  precisely  as  commerce  and  in¬ 
dustry  demand.  This  bond  security  feature,  in 
fact,  makes  our  bank  note  a  vast  improvement 
over  “ credit  currency”— which  is  always  peril¬ 
ous  ;  and  it  is  a  long  step  in  advance  of  the  Bank 
of  England  notes,  because  they  are  rigidly  lim¬ 
ited  in  amount  by  the  actual  gold  which  they  rep¬ 
resent.  That  is  British  conservatism  carried  too 
far. 

If  now  we  take  the  government  out  of  the  bank¬ 
ing  business ;  if  we  transfer  to  the  banks  the  bur - 


294 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


den  of  maintaining  gold  payments  and  supplying 
gold  when  it  may  be  needed  for  export;  and  if 
we  require  each  of  the  banks  to  carry,  as  part  of 
its  legal  reserve,  at  least  25  per  cent,  of  its  note 
issues  in  actual  gold  coin  with  which  to  redeem 
every  note  that  may  be  presented— then  we  shall 
have  the  safest,  most  scientific,  and  most  perfect 
system  of  bank  note  issues  that  the  world  has 
ever  yet  known.  It  will  expand  and  contract  au¬ 
tomatically,  as  trade  requirements  dictate;  the 
wide  distribution  of  gold  among  all  the  banks 
will  make  a  corner  in  gold  utterly  impossible ;  le¬ 
gitimate  borrowers,  with  known  credit  and  ample 
securities  to  offer,  can  get  accommodations  from 
so  many  different  banks  that  it  will  be  impossible 
for  the  great  Wall  Street  bankers  to  corner  the 
money  market;  and  whether  our  per  capita  of 
money  in  circulation  be  $25  or  $50— the  bond  se¬ 
curity,  lying  safely  in  the  Treasury  in  Washing¬ 
ton,  will  give  a  rock-ribbed  guarantee  of  the  full 
payment  of  every  bank  note  that  may  be  issued. 

All  of  this  is  easily  possible,  because  the  Amer¬ 
ican  people  are  irrevocably  committed  to  the  sin¬ 
gle  gold  standard ;  there  is  plenty  of  gold  now  in 
existence  to  do  the  work ;  the  increase  in  the  pro¬ 
duction  of  gold  is  steady  and  enormous;  and 
should  the  time  ever  come  when  gold  will  become 
too  cheap  and  too  bulky  to  serve  as  the  money 
standard— which  is  exactly  what  has  happened  to 
silver— then  all  we  need  do  is  to  make  absolutely 
sure  that  all  our  money  is  as  good  as  the  best ,  no 
matter  what  the  standard  may  be.  But  that  is 
thinking  for  the  far,  far  future— and  future  gen¬ 
erations  will  be  quite  able  to  take  care  of  them- 


THE  MONEY  QUESTION. 


295 


selves  <  6  so  long  as  the  press  is  free.  ’  ’  The  prob¬ 
lem  of  the  present,  the  immediate  problem,  is  to 
make  our  money  and  hanking  laws  conform  to 
what  the  people  want— conform  to  what  they 
have  twice  voted  for  by  overwhelming  majorities. 

For  these  reasons  I  hold  that,  just  as  four  wars 
have  taught  us  precisely  how  to  employ  our  ar¬ 
mies  and  navies  in  defense  of  our  liberties  at 
home  and  our  just  rights  abroad,  so  four  panics 
have  now  taught  us  the  beginning  and  the  end  of 
money  and  finance.  The  fear  of  another  panic  is 
born  of  ignorance  and  sheer  neglect  of  plain 
duty  by  the  Republican  party,  which  is  now  dom¬ 
inated  and  owned  by  the  plotting  and  scheming 
millionaires.  To  permit  another  panic  would  be 
a  folly  and  crime  unthinkable.  And  if  ever  we 
have  a  President  in  the  White  House  who  counte¬ 
nances  threats  of  panic,  or  who  dares  to  permit 
any  group  of  scheming  promoters  to  meddle  with 
and  manipulate  the  people’s  money  for  stock- 
jobbing  purposes— he  should  be  impeached  and 
disgraced  for  mental  incompetency ! 


THE  TARIFF  AS  RELATED  TO  THE 

TRUSTS. 


“  I  think  all  the  world  would  gain  by  setting  commerce  at  per¬ 
fect  freedom.  *  ’  r 

Our  interest  will  be  to  throw  open  the  doors  of  commerce, 
and  to  knock  off  all  its  shackles,  giving  perfect  freedom  to  all 
persons  for  the  vent  of  whatever  they  may  choose  to  bring  into 
our  ports,  and  asking  the  same  in  theirs.  ’  ’ 

‘  ‘  Instead  of  embarrassing  commerce  under  piles  of  regulating 
laws,  duties,  and  prohibitions,  could  it  be  relieved  of  all  its 
shackles  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  could  every  country  be  em¬ 
ployed  in  producing  that  which  nature  has  best  fitted  it  to  pro¬ 
duce,  and  each  be  free  to  exchange  with  others  mutual  surpluses 
for  mutual  wants,  the  greatest  mass  possible  would  then  be  pro¬ 
duced  of  those  things  which  contribute  to  human  life  and  human 
happiness;  the  numbers  of  mankind  would  be  increased,  and  their 
condition  bettered.  Would  even  a  single  nation  begin  with  the 
United  States  this  system  of  free  commerce,  it  would  be  advis¬ 
able  to  begin  it  with  that  nation,  since  it  is  one  by  one  only  that 
it  can  extend  to  all.  ’ 1 

— Thomas  Jefferson. 

Chapter  IX. 

Environment  makes  the  man— and  the  mind. 

Nativity  stamps  its  impress  upon  man’s  physi¬ 
cal  and  mental  nature  so  indelibly  that  the  indi¬ 
vidual  can  never  shake  it  oft.  Who  ever  heard  of 
an  Indian  becoming  anything  else  than  an  Indian ; 
or  a.  Chinaman  becoming  anything  else  than  a 
Chinaman  ?  Who  that  has  traveled  and  made  a 
study  of  native  Englishmen,  Frenchmen,  Ger¬ 
mans  and  Americans,  but  can  instantly  distin¬ 
guish  their  differing  characteristics? 

It  is  this  fact  in  natural  history  which  has  en- 

296 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


297 


abled  Darwin,  Spencer,  Wallace,  Huxley  and 
their  fellows,  to  reorganize  and  re-form  scientific 
philosophy;  to  prove  by  numberless  examples 
drawn  from  the  known  history  of  all  peoples,  how 
persistent  is  race  inheritance ;  and  thus  to  make 
evident  the  universal  law  of  evolution,  by  which 
different  environment,  producing  slight  physical 
changes,  slowly  evolves,  step  by  step,  through 
ages  of  time,  a  new  type,  a  new  race,  of  men. 

And  what  is  true  of  the  physical  world,  is 
equally  and  inexorably  true  of  mental  science. 
Fortunately,  however,  the  printing  press  enables 
men  of  all  nations  and  climes  to  be  citizens  of  the 
world.  Through  reading  and  study;  through 
travel  and  observation;  through  comparison  of 
what  we  see  about  us  with  authentic  records  of 
what  other  people  think  and  do,  we  can  recognize 
and  correct  our  defects— that  is  to  say,  we  can 
rise  superior  to  the  physical  and  material  envi¬ 
ronment  which  hedges  us  about.  For  these  rea¬ 
sons,  mental  science  goes  forward  by  leaps  and 
bounds— but  only  “so  long  as  the  press  is  free.” 
For  the  history  of  the  world  gives  ample  proof 
that  when  prison  walls,  the  guillotine,  the  thumb¬ 
screw  of  the  Inquisition,  and  armies  and  navies 
can  be  employed  to  prevent  men  from  writing 
what  they  think— just  so  long  is  the  progress  of 
mental  science  limited  by  the  inexorable  laws  of 
physical  science.  And  this  is  precisely  why  Jef¬ 
ferson  ’s  genius  prompted  him  to  write : 

“Were  it  left  to  me  to  decide  whether  we 
should  have  a  government  without  newspapers, 
or  newspapers  without  a  government,  I  should 
not  hesitate  a  moment  to  prefer  the  latter.” 


298 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


It  is  since  the  invention  of  printing,  since  the 
press  became  free,  and  especially  since  the  steam¬ 
ship,  the  railroad,  and  the  telegraph  came  to  the 
aid  of  the  press,  that  the  world  has  been  bounding 
forward  in  mental  science  at  a  rate  that  mankind 
never  knew  before.  Men  have  simply  been  free 
to  print  and  free  to  criticise ;  free  to  scoff  at  old 
and  foolish  systems,  and  free  to  agitate  for  new 
and  better  systems;  free  to  travel,  and  almost 
free  to  trade ;  free  to  invent  new  methods  and  ma¬ 
chinery,  and  always  free  to  demonstrate  the  ad¬ 
vantages  of  new  inventions.  Thus  millions  of 
men  have  been  able  to  rise  above  their  environ¬ 
ment.  And  through  the  leadership  of  resourceful 
and  inventive  minds,  the  standard  of  intelligence 
and  the  standard  of  physical  comfort  for  the 
great  body  of  the  people  have  advanced  wonder¬ 
fully  during  the  past  century. 

But  throughout  the  period  of  the  greatest  ad¬ 
vance,  for  full  forty  years  past,  the  American 
people  have  been  living  under  the  barbarous  sys¬ 
tem  of  Protection.  The  party  in  power  has  stood 
for  it ;  politicians  have  won  offices  and  honors  by 
advocating  it;  the  rich  and  the  well-to-do  have 
upheld  it ;  the  manufacturers,  big  and  little,  have 
had  a  pocket  interest  in  supporting  its  campaign 
expenses ;  and  the  free  traders  who  oppose  it  have 
been  so  few  and  far  between  that  they  have 
counted  as  mere  theorists.  As  a  natural,  as  an 
inevitable  consequence,  this  environment  has 
taught  millions  of  clear-headed  men  of  business  to 
honestly  entertain  the  delusion  that  Protection 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


299 


has  built  up  our  great  industries,— that  without 
Protection  our  manufacturing  supremacy  could 
never  have  been  won. 

But,  at  last,  the  light  of  day  is  now  dawning ! 

Dewey  began  the  process  of  education  at  day¬ 
break  on  that  immortal  May  morning  in  Manila 
Bay,  when  he  taught  the  new  race  of  American 
seamen  precisely  how  to  do  their  work.  That 
started  all  America  at  the  business  of  studying 
forgotten  maps  of  the  world,  that  they  might  at 
least  know  where  the  Philippines  were  located. 
From  that  day  to  this,  we  have  been  busy  with  the 
study  of  world  history,  world  politics,  and,  espe¬ 
cially,  the  possibilities  of  world-wide  trade.  San¬ 
tiago  followed  Manila  quickly — to  demonstrate 
that  Dewey’s  work  was  neither  a  miracle  nor  an 
accident.  And  the  Fourth  of  July  news  from 
Santiago  in  1898  was  profoundly  impressive  and 
significant  to  all  Europe,  because  it  emphasized 
with  shot  and  shell  the  realism  of  that  Declaration 
of  Independence  which  our  fathers  gave  to  the 
world  on  July  Fourth,  1776.  Europe  scoffed  at 
the  first  Declaration,  and  kept  on  scoffing  at  it  for 
just  one  hundred  and  twenty-two  years.  But  that 
message  from  Manila  and  Santiago  was  spoken 
in  a  language  which  all  Europe  has  been  trained 
to  understand— and,  understanding,  they  have 
ceased  to  scoff ! 

“Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might; 
and  in  that  faith,  let  us,  to  the  end,  dare  to  do 
our  duty  as  we  understand  it.  ” 

— Abraham  Lincoln. 

While  the  spectacular  and  instructive  little  war 
with  Spain  was  in  progress,  we  began  to  be 


300  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

amazed  by  the  figures  showing  a  sudden  and  enor¬ 
mous  increase  in  our  exports  of  metals,  machin¬ 
ery,  and  manufactures  of  every  kind.  Straight¬ 
way  thousands  of  American  manufacturers  and 
American  salesmen  sped  to  Europe  to  look  after 
the  unexpected,  unsought,  and  surprising  foreign 
demand  for  practically  everything  that  we  manu¬ 
facture  for  our  home  markets.  Then  followed 
the  startling  contracts  for  great  bridges  in  the 
Soudan,  in  Burma,  and  in  East  and  Central 
Africa;  for  locomotives  to  run  on  British  rail¬ 
ways  ;  for  power  plants  to  operate  traction  sys¬ 
tems  in  British  and  Continental  cities;  and  for 
American  electrical  machinery  and  machine  tools 
to  be  installed  in  every  center  of  industry 
throughout  Europe.  For  full  five  years  past 
newspaper  correspondents  and  ambitious  authors 
have  been  writing  volumes  about 4 ‘The  American 
Invaders  ’ ’  and  ‘  ‘  The  American  Peril ;  ’  ’  while  the 
technical  press  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  has 
been  busy  with  the  work  of  illustrating  and 
describing  the  exact  differences  between  Amer¬ 
ican  and  European  methods,  machinery,  and  in¬ 
dustrial  management.  This  in  turn  has  brought 
shoals  of  British  and  Continental  engineers  and 
manufacturers  to  the  United  States  to  study  our 
great  and  small  manufacturing  plants ;  to  marvel 
at  our  methods  and  machinery;  and  straightway 
to  adopt  what  is  manifestly  superior— to  our  ad¬ 
vantage,  as  well  as  theirs. 

Thus  travel,  observation,  study,  and  profitable 
experience  in  selling  our  manufactures  to  foreign 
customers,  have  converted  tens  of  thousands  of 
life-long  believers  in  Protection  into  radical  tariff 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


301 


reformers  or  out-and-out  free  traders.  Not  an 
American  manufacturer  who  has  been  abroad  or 
sold  goods  abroad  but  is  now  ready  and  eager  for 
radical  tariff  reform— obviously  because  it  would 
lower  the  cost  of  all  the  materials  of  production 
and  make  an  end  of  the  tyranny  and  heavy  tribute 
that  the  Trusts  exact.  Not  an  editor  or  publisher 
of  our  numerous  technical  journals,  and  not  an 
inventor,  engineer,  works  manager,  or  high-sala¬ 
ried  salesman  in  the  service  of  our  industries,  but 
sees  the  pressing  need  for  getting  rid  of  the  ex¬ 
orbitant  prices  which  are  hampering  business  at 
home  and  fast  shutting  us  out  of  foreign  markets. 
Not  a  well-informed  and  honest  banker  in  the 
Nation  but  glories  in  every  development  that  ex¬ 
poses  and  discredits  the  inflated  “industrials”— 
watered  to  five  times  their  real  value,  and  perilous 
to  all  legitimate  banking  interests,  because  nobody 
but  “ inside rs”  can  learn  anything  about  them. 

“When  great  evils  happen,  I  am  in  the  habit  of  looking  out 
for  what  good  may  arise  from  them  as  consolation  to  us;  and 
Providence  has  in  fact  so  established  the  order  of  things  as  that 
most  evils  are  the  means  of  producing  some  good. M 

—  Thomas  Jefferson. 

And  Jefferson  was  right  in  this— as  he  was 
right  in  all  else  that  he  ever  taught  or  did  in 
American  political  history.  Trust  jobbery  is  an 
intolerable  evil.  But  it  is  to  the  stock- jobbing 
Trust  promoters  that  we  are  indebted  for  a  spec¬ 
tacular  demonstration  of  the  now  obvious  fact 
that  pocket-interest  is  the  inspiration  of  Protec¬ 
tion  1  ‘logic,’ ’  and  that  those  who  teach  Protection 
have  no  other  purpose  than  to  enrich  the  few  at 
the  direct  expense  of  the  many— as  all  American 


302  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

history  proves,  as  all  British  history  proves,  as 
all  Continental  history  proves,  and  as  every  great 
thinker  and  writer  upon  political  economy  since 
Adam  Smith’s  time  has  demonstrated  so  clearly, 
in  cold  print,  that  no  man  need  longer  be  bur¬ 
dened  with  the  Protection  delusion  if  he  will  sim¬ 
ply  take  time  to  read  a  small  part  of  the  free  trade 
literature  which  every  library  can  supply. 

Now  that  the  stock-jobbers  have  demonstrated 
what  free  trade  writers  and  tariff  reformers  have 
been  vainly  teaching  for  forty  years,  the  imme¬ 
diate  business  in  hand  is  to  show  how  the  work 
of  the  Protection  schemers  can  be  undone— with 
the  least  possible  injury  to  the  fewest  number  of 
people,  and  with  the  greatest  possible  benefit  to 
the  whole  Nation.  And  here  again  we  must  turn 
to  Jefferson  for  wise  guidance: 

“ A  government  held  together  by  the  bands  of  reason  only, 
requires  much  compromise  of  opinion;  that  things  even  salutary 
Should  not  be  crammed  down  the  throats  of  dissenting  brethren. 1 } 

— Thomas  Jefferson. 

I  was  born  to  belief  in  Protection. 

Five  generations  of  my  ancestors  were  iron 
manufacturers ;  my  forefathers  followed  and  be¬ 
lieved  in  Henry  Clay  as  they  believed  in  the  Gos¬ 
pel  ;  and  I  grew  to  manhood  in  that  environment. 
I  know,  therefore,  that  thousands  of  men  who  are 
still  burdened  with  belief  in  Protection— but  who 
have  ceased  to  preach  it— are  just  as  honest,  just 
as  earnest,  and  just  as  patriotic  as  I  ever  dared  to 
be.  But  the  necessity  for  making  a  living  has 
driven  me  beyond  the  limits  of  local  environment. 
I  have  come  to  see  that  Protection  is  a  delusion. 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


303 


My  eyes  have  been  opened  wide  to  the  fact  that 
the  politicians  who  continue  to  preach  Protection, 
like  the  promoters  who  pay  Protection’s  cam¬ 
paign  expenses,  are  inspired  solely  by  selfish  per¬ 
sonal  interest.  And  I  know— as  the  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  American  people  well  know— that 
Protection  is  the  very  bulwark  and  mainstay  of 
the  Trusts  that  fleece  and  menace  us. 

The  proof  of  this  is  so  ample  and  so  conclusive 
that  no  honest  man  need  longer  be  deceived.  And, 
by  way  of  proof,  I  will  begin  with  presenting,  side 
by  side,  the  current  prices  for  iron  and  steel— the 
basis  of  all  constructive  enterprise— in  Trust- 
ridden  America  and  in  Free  Trade  England.  The 
quotations  are  supplied  by  one  of  the  most  repu¬ 
table  American  firms  engaged  in  the  import  trade 
in  iron  and  steel,  and  the  prices  given  represent 
actual  transactions. 

In  each  case  the  quotation  is  for  a  long  ton  of 
2,240  lbs.  f.  o.  b.  at  Middlesbrough  and  Swan¬ 
sea,  England,  and  f.  o.  b.  Pittsburgh,  Pa. ;  and  the 
prices  are  those  current  during  the  first  half  of 
May,  1903 : 


Merchant  Bar  Iron. 
Bessemer  Billets. . . 
Bessemer  Pig  Iron. 
No.  3  Foundry  Iron 
Gray  Forge  Iron . . . 

Tank  Plates . 

Black  Plates . 


ENGLAND 

UNITED 

dinglby 

STATES 

DUTY 

$30.00 

$48.10 

$13.44 

20.00 

30.00 

6.72 

14.36 

19.35 

4.00 

11.40 

19.75 

4.00 

11.25 

19.00 

4.00 

30.91 

38.08 

13.44 

50.40 

72.80 

*29.12 

Now,  mark  you,  Mr.  Rockefeller  has  taught  us 

♦In  the  light  of  this  enormous  profit  upon  every  ton  of  material 
used  in  making  tin  plate,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  a  few  men  have 
made  millions  through  the  Tin  Plate  Trust.  “  Finance  is  a  mere 
matter  of  politics,”  as  Disraeli  shrewdly  observed. 


304 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


that  combinations  “are  a  necessity”  to  cheapen 
production .  Mr.  Carnegie  has  joined  him  in 
teaching  that : 

“The  masses  of  the  people,  the  toiling  millions,  are  soon  to 
find  in  this  great  law  of  aggregation  of  capital  and  of  factories 
another  of  those  beneficent  agencies  which  in  their  operation 
tend  to  bring  to  the  homes  of  the  poor,  in  greater  degree  than 
ever,  more  and  more  of  the  luxuries  of  the  rich,  and  into  their 
lives  more  of  sweetness  and  light.* 1 

Inspired  by  this  beneficent  teaching,  Mr.  Mor¬ 
gan  has  put  the  system  into  practical  operation, 
so  that  the  dear  people  may  get  more  and  more  of 
“sweetness  and  light;”  and  Mr.  Roosevelt,  our 
strenuous  and  rough-riding  reformer,  joins  the 
glad  acclaim  of  the  Prosperity  Prophets  by  telling 
us  that  “Great  fortunes  have  been  won  by  those 
who  have  taken  the  lead  in  this  phenomenal  indus¬ 
trial  development,  and  most  of  these  fortunes 
have  been  won,  not  by  doing  evil,  but  as  an  inci¬ 
dent  to  action  which  has  benefited  the  community 
as  a  whole.”  But  some  of  us  are  prompted  to 
ask,  How  is  the  community  as  a  whole  “bene¬ 
fited”  by  these  high  prices  for  steel  and  iron- 
prices  away  above  what  English  freemen  are 
asked  to  pay— price’s  enormously  higher  than  we 
were  asked  to  pay  for  many  years,  before  the  be¬ 
neficent  Trusts  were  formed— prices  which  fully 
explain  the  fabulous  profits  ($140,000,000  a  year) 
of  the  Steel  Trust? 

One  of  the  favorite  subterfuges  of  the  Trust 
promoters  and  Protection  politicians,  is  to  boast 
that  Free  Trade  England  has  Trusts,  precisely  as 
we  have  Trusts  in  America— thus  deluding  the 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


305 


uninformed  with  the  belief  that  “the  question  of 
regulation  of  the  Trusts  stands  apart  from  the 
question  of  tariff  revision. 9  1  I  have  been  actively 
engaged  in  business  in  Europe  for  six  years  past. 
I  know  London  as  I  know  New  York.  And  I  have 
never  heard  of  any  English  millionaires  who  have 
duplicated  the  work  which  has  made  Carnegie, 
Bockefeller  and  Morgan  notorious.  But  I  have 
heard  of  several  English  promoters  who  at¬ 
tempted  to  imitate  the  American  example — to  the 
infinite  discomfiture  of  investors  in  these  wonder¬ 
working  combination  shares!  I  know,  also,  that 
a  prodigious  effort  was  made  to  combine  the  iron 
and  steel  manufactures  of  Great  Britain,  just  as 
they  are  combined  in  America;  and  that  effort 
failed-— solely  because  there  is  not,  and  never 
again  can  be,  a  Protection  wall  around  the  sea 
coast  of  the  liberty-loving  British  isles.  In  con¬ 
sequence  of  that  fact,  British  shipbuilders,  British 
machinery  manufacturers,  and  British  consumers 
of  iron  and  steel  generally,  buy  their  staples  of 
productive  and  constructive  industry  much 
cheaper  than  their  American  competitors.  And 
meanwhile,  Britain’s  output  of  iron  and  steel  is 
now  larger  than  ever  before  in  all  her  proud  his¬ 
tory. 

#  Very  recently,  also,  the  President  of  the  Asso¬ 
ciation  of  Chambers  of  Commerce  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  Sir  John  Lubbock,  “so  well  known  in 
the  world  of  science  and  commerce,”  called  atten¬ 
tion  to  the  speaking  facts  which  are  thus  reported 
by  the  London  correspondent  of  the  New  York 
Evenmg  Post: 

“You  know  how  full  the  air  has  been  during  the  past  year  of 


306 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


prophecies  of  Britain's  industrial  decay.  What  says  Sir  John 
Lubbock?  Both  imports  and  exports  he  notes  had  risen,  and  the 
total  last  year  (1902)  attained  the  gigantic  sum  of  $4,260,000,- 
000,  which  showed  an  increase  of  $50,000,000  over  1901.  In  fact, 
1902  was  a  record  year.  Moreover,  the  increase  was  very  evenly 
distributed.  It  said  much  for  the  skill  and  energy  of  British 
manufacturers  that  those  of  scarcely  any  other  country  were  pre¬ 
pared  to  compete  with  them  on  free  and  open  terms.  But  while, 
no  doubt,  foreign  countries  might  bolster  up  particular  indus¬ 
tries,  it  was  only  at  the  expense  of  others.  Perhaps  it  would  be 
said  that  these  were  only  the  figures  for  one  year.  That  was 
true,  but  if  they  went  back  twenty,  thirty,  or  forty  years,  they 
would,  in  any  case,  find  satisfactory  progress.  Forty  years  ago 
British  commerce  was  not  half  what  it  is  now,  the  shipping  had 
doubled  in  the  same  period;  Id.  on  the  income  tax  now  produces 
twice  as  much  as  it  did;  the  consumption  of  what  might  be 
called  the  comforts  of  life  had  immensely  increased.  He  did  not 
say  that  this  proved  the  wisdom  of  British  policy,  but  it  proved 
that  Britain  was  making  very  satisfactory  progress.  English¬ 
men  did  not  now  hear  quite  so  much  about  Germany  as  they  did; 
but  they  were  often  told,  and  it  sounded  plausible  to  say,  for 
instance,  that  Germany  protected  her  manufactures,  her  agricul¬ 
ture,  her  canals,  her  sugar  industries,  and  her  shipping.  But  at 
whose  expense?  She  could  not  tax  France  or  Bussia  or  England. 
Her  own  people  had  to  hear  the  expense.” 

In  his  written  testimony  before  the  Industrial 
Commission,  Mr.  Rockefeller  told  ns  that  among 
the  * 4  advantages  ’  ’  of  industrial  combinations  are : 
4  4  Economy  in  business— Power  to  give  the  pub¬ 
lic  improved  products  at  less  'prices,  and  still 
make  profit  for  stockholders— Permanent  work 
and  good  wages  for  laborers.”  As  against  this 
persuasive  argument ,  we  know  that  the  Standard 
Oil  Company  has  advanced  the  price  of  oil  four 
cents  a  gallon  within  the  past  twelve  months ;  and 
the  prices  shown  above  indicate  the 4  4  advantages  ’ 9 
which  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  is 
affording  American  consumers  of  iron  and  steel. 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


307 


Back  in  August,  1900,  Senator  Marcus  A. 
Hanna  made  a  speech  to  a  great  multitude  of  peo¬ 
ple  at  Asbury  Park.  I  knew  that  what  he  said 
would  be  worth  recalling  later  on,  and  so  at  the 
time  I  clipped  the  following  extract  from  the 
newspapers  for  future  use: 

“Go  back  to  1892,  when,  under  a  Republican  Administration, 
we  found  ourselves  in  the  midst  of  prosperity;  we  found  the  fur¬ 
naces  were  lighted,  the  spindles  were  humming;  men  were  busy 
on  every  hand;  happiness  prevailed  throughout  the  country. 

“There  came  a  change.  People  wanted  a  change  and  got  it. 
I  need  not  tell  you  how  fire  after  fire  went  out ;  how  the  spindles 
ceased  to  spin;  how  the  laborer  was  thrown  out  of  employment 
month  after  month.  It  grew  worse  and  worse,  until  the  country 
was  in  a  deplorable  condition. 

“The  people  wanted  another  change,  and  they  got  it.  And 
what  a  change  it  was  I  Fires  were  again  lighted;  spindles  be¬ 
gan  to  sing  again;  prosperity  became  manifest  on  every  hand; 
happy  homes,  happy  firesides  were  the  result  of  that  change. 

“Do  you  want  another?  Do  you  want  to  go  back  to  1893,  to 
1897?  Of  course,  you  don't,  and  don't  intend  to;  but  if  you 
don't,  you  all  want  to  commence  this  night,  and  from  this  time 
on,  do  your  duty  in  this  campaign. ' ' 

Yes,  Mr.  Hanna,  we  had  a  change  in  1892,  from 
the  party  that  enacted  the  Sherman  Silver  Coin¬ 
age  Law— as  the  price  paid  for  the  McKinley  hill . 
We  had  another  change  in  1896,  because  we  re¬ 
fused  to  elect  a  Democratic  candidate  openly 
pledged  to  the  free  coinage  of  silver.  In  1900  we 
were  hungering  and  thirsting  for  still  another 
change,  from  the  party  that  deliberately  betrayed 
our  Sound  Money  victory  by  enacting  the  infa¬ 
mous  Dingley  bill.  But  we  saw  that  a  second  les¬ 
son  was  needed  to  teach  ambitious  free  silver 
Democrats  the  error  of  their  honest  convictions ; 


308 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


and  as  a  mighty  Nation  of  freemen  we  were  brave 
enough,  rich  enough,  and  powerful  enough  to 
hold  ourselves  though  we  knew  that  you  and  your 
Trust-promoting  friends  had  no  other  object  than 
to  enrich  yourselves  through  the  fabulous  profits 
made  possible  by  that  same  infamous  Dingley 
bill. 

But  now  the  time  has  come  for  a  reckoning. 
Free  silver  is  dead  beyond  resuscitation.  The 
lessons  of  experience  have  been  learned.  We 
mean  to  have  another  change  in  1904.  And  that 
change  will  be  simply  to  demand  that  the  Oil 
Trust,  the  Steel  Trust,  and  all  the  lesser  Trusts 
shall  sell  to  American  manufacturers  at  the  same 
prices  that  they  sell  to  English  manufacturers. 
We  shall  be  entirely  content  with  that  basis,  be¬ 
cause  we  know— we  have  Carnegie’s  word  for  it— 
that  you  can  produce  cheaper  here  than  they  can 
possibly  produce  in  England.  And  hence  you  will 
not  have  the  shadow  of  an  excuse  for  creating  a 
panic  or  shutting  down  factories  and  throwing 
men  out  of  work  for  political  elfect. 

In  fact,  Mr.  Hanna,  the  American  people  un¬ 
derstand  their  business  much  better  than  you  sup¬ 
pose.  They  understand  perfectly  that  your  per¬ 
sonal  ambition  prompted  you  to  supply  the  cash 
capital  and  the  organizing  capacity  which  Mc¬ 
Kinley  lacked;  and  so  you  took  him  in  hand,  to 
show  what  a  strong  man  can  do  for  even  a  weak 
candidate— if  the  work  be  done  systematically 
and  on  “business  principles.”  The  deep  schem¬ 
ers  who  have  been  piling  up  millions  since  the 
Civil  War  quickly  saw  that  you  could  be  useful; 
and  so  they  sent  Tom  Platt  and  others  out  to  the 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


309 


convention  at  St.  Louis  in  1896  to  make  terms 
with  you.  When  you  forced  McKinley  to  swallow 
his  free  silver  convictions ;  and  when  you  agreed 
to  a  platform  which  would  at  least  promise  sound 
money— then  they  took  you  into  the  “community- 
of-interest  ’  ’  partnership.  The  rest  is  soon  told. 
Carnegie,  Rockefeller,  Morgan  &  Co.  elected  Mc¬ 
Kinley;  passed  the  Dingley  bill;  combined  our 
iron  and  steel  industries;  monopolized  our  best 
ore  mines  and  coking  coal ;  put  prices  up ;  proved 
the  net  cash  profits  they  are  making;  capitalized 
that  Protection  income  at  about  a  ten  per  cent 
basis;  and  for  three  years  past  they  have  been 
busy  in  the  work  of  marketing  the  watered  stock. 

If  we  now  remove  the  duties,  the  prices  of  iron 
and  steel  will  steadily  settle  down  to  a  normal 
level  with  European  prices— which  would,  of 
course,  make  a  large  hole  in  the  net  profits  of  the 
Steel  Trust.  As  the  profits  go  down,  the  Wall 
Street  quotations  for  the  watered  stock  will  prob¬ 
ably  follow.  But  that  does  not  concern  us.  It 
concerns  the  enterprising  promoters  who  have 
capitalized  Protection  profits ;  and  it  concerns  the 
few  people  who  have  been  induced  to  invest  their 
savings  in  Steel  Trust  stocks.  Carnegie  warned 
them,  before  and  after,  that  “the  only  people  who 
need  fear  the  Trusts  are  those  who  trust  them, 
those  foolish  enough  to  go  into  them.  ’ 9  They  will 
probably  have  reason  to  recall  that  warning;  and 
they  will  doubtless  have  some  hard  things  to  say 
concerning  those  who  have  tempted  them  to  invest 
their  savings.  But  whether  they  win  or  lose  in 
the  great  Wall  Street  game  of  chance,  they  are  at 
least  sure  of  the  consoling  knowledge  that  they 


310 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


have  enabled  Mr.  Carnegie  to  pose  as  the  world’s 
greatest  “benefactor;”  that  they  have  enabled 
Mr.  Rockefeller  to  prove  himself  the  master-mind 
of  industrial  combinations— which  “are  a  neces¬ 
sity”  now,  though  they  never  were  before;  and 
they  have  enabled  Mr.  Morgan  to  write  his  title 
clear  as  our  Napoleon  of  Finance. 

But  again  I  say,  this  does  not  concern  us.  We 
are  charged  with  the  solemn  duty  of  justly  gov¬ 
erning  eighty  millions  of  freemen.  Three  centu¬ 
ries  of  time  look  down  upon  us.  The  blood  and 
sacrifice  of  millions  of  heroes,  who  have  given 
their  lives,  their  fortunes,  and  their  all,  that  we 
might  enjoy  what  we  now  possess  of  liberty  and 
opportunity— these  speak  now !  Our  rich  and  ex¬ 
haustless  stores  of  iron  ore  and  coking  coal,  and 
our  furnaces,  mills,  and  factories— are  all  here. 
Willing  hands  are  ready  to  work  them  upon  fair 
terms— with  differences  always  subject  to  arbitra¬ 
tion.  The  demand  for  iron  and  steel  is  without 
limit— if  the  prices  be  made  low  enough  to  induce 
consumption.  And  we  absolutely  know  that  we 
can  produce  cheaper  than  any  other  people  under 
the  sun! 

In  short,  a  few  thousand  stockholders  in  the 
Steel  Trust  now  have  a  pocket-interest  in  support¬ 
ing  the  Dinglev  duties,  that  profits  may  be  fab¬ 
ulous  and  that  dividends  may  be  high.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  eighty  millions  of  American  freemen 
have  a  pocket-interest  in  demanding  that  the 
Dingley  duties  be  removed,  so  that  the  many  may 
not  be  taxed  to  enrich  the  few. 

Now  let  us  take  a  look  abroad. 

For  full  twenty  years  past  men  engaged  in  ex- 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


311 


port  trade  have  known  that  our  manufacturers 
sell  their  goods  to  foreign  consumers  at  very  low 
prices,  while  charging  American  consumers  “all 
the  traffic  will  bear”  inside  our  tariff  wall.  But 
it  is  only  since  Wall  Street  promoters  began  to 
capitalize  Protection  profits,  and  only  since  the 
Trusts  began  to  squeeze  smaller  manufacturers , 
that  we  have  been  able  to  get  any  authentic  infor¬ 
mation  upon  that  subject.  The  sworn  testimony 
before  the  Industrial  Commission  gives  abundant 
and  speaking  evidence  upon  this  point— but  that 
testimony  is  far  too  voluminous  for  reproduction 
in  these  pages.  Those  who  desire  the  literature 
can  easily  obtain  it  through  tariff-reform  Con¬ 
gressmen.  It  will  suffice  here  if  I  present  the  fol¬ 
lowing  table  of  prices,  taken  from  authenticated 
export  price  lists,  and  published  last  summer  by 
Representative  Griggs,  Chairman  of  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  Congressional  Committee: 


Price  to 

Price  to 

Articles. 

Americans. 

foreigners. 

Wire  nails  (keg)  . . . . 

.  $2  25 

$1  30 

Wire  rope  (coil) . . .  . 

.  12  00 

5  00 

Lead  (100  lbs.) . 

.  4  00 

2  00 

Shovels  (dozen)  .  . .  . 

.  7  50 

5  80 

Axle  grease  (lb.) ... . 

.  08 

04 

Washboards  (dozen) 

.  3  00 

1  70 

Meat  choppers . 

.  2  70 

1  50 

Uarbprl  wirp  . 

.  3  00 

2  20 

Clock  (alarm)  . . 

.  60 

30 

Lawn  mowers  . 

.  4  25 

2  75 

Fruit  jars  (Mason’s, 

dozen)  . . 

.  80 

55 

Typewriters  . 

.  100  00 

55  00 

Sewing  machines  .  . . 

.  40  00 

17  00 

Tin  plate  (100  lbs.) 

.  4  19 

3  19 

Borax  is  an 

article 

which  sells  in 

England 

312  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

at  2J  cents  a  pound,  and  in  the  United  States 
at  7\  cents.  The  Dingley  duty  is  exactly  5  cents 
a  pound — and  the  stockholders  of  the  Borax 
Trust  swear  by  the  Dingley  duty. 

Mica  is  an  article  which  is  largely  used  in  the 
electrical  industries,  and  also  by  the  stove  makers. 
The  Dingley  duty  on  mica  amounts  to  a  modest 
4,000  per  cent,  of  its  market  price  in  England,— 
and  the  stockholders  in  the  Mica  Trust  are  happy 
as  clams  at  high  tide ! 

Mr.  Boosevelt— the  original  free  trader,  now 
leading  the  Protection  hosts,— tells  us  that  if 
we  remove  the  duties  on  Trust  products  we  shall 
seriously  cripple  the  numerous  smaller  manu¬ 
facturers  who  are  struggling  in  competition  with 
the  Trusts.  But  these  smaller  competitors — 
who  do  not  control  their  own  raw  materials,  who 
must  buy  from  the  Trusts,  and  who  have  no 
“community-of-interest”  with  the  railroads  in 
the  matter  of  freight  rates  and  shipping  facilities 
— these  independent  producers  can  supply  Mr. 
Roosevelt  with  much  instructive  information  as 
to  how  the  Trusts  compete  with  them.  Here,  for 
example,  is  a  little  item  clipped  from  the  New 
York  Herald  which  indicates  what  happened  re¬ 
cently  when  the  “  outsiders  ’ ’  began  to  compete  for 
business  by  reducing  prices  for  tin  plate,  wire 
nails,  sheet  steel  and  iron  pipe : 

It  is  reported  that  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  may 
advance  the  price  of  iron  ore  early  in  the  new  year,  and  at  the 
same  time  may  reduce  the  price  of  some  finished  materials. 
Other  manufacturers  who  have  not  the  control  of  their  own  raw 
material  will  work  to  a  disadvantage  where  they  have  to  buy  the 
ores  from  their  big  competitor.  At  the  same  time  profits  will 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


313 


be  materially  reduced  when  they  come  to  sell  their  products.  It 
is  believed  that  other  steel  and  iron  concerns  which  control  their 

own  raw  material  will  readily  follow  the  lead  of  the  steel  cor¬ 
poration. 

“If  this  plan  is  followed  a  heavy  blow  will  be  struck  at  num¬ 
erous  small  competitors  in  the  iron  and  steel  business  which  are 
believed  to  be  responsible  for  the  cuts  in  prices  recently  an¬ 
nounced.  7  7 

Mr.  Charles  T.  Yerkes,  the  millionaire  operator 
in  street  railway  franchises,  was  the  successful 
competitor  against  Mr.  J.  Pierpont  Morgan  in  se¬ 
curing  the  great  contract  for  giving  London  an 
up-to-date  rapid  transit  system.  After  his  con¬ 
tract  was  signed  he  came  back  home  to  place  large 
orders  for  equipment,  which  English  manufactur¬ 
ers  could  not  supply  within  the  time  when  he  need¬ 
ed  it  to  complete  his  work.  But  arriving  here,  he 
found  that  the  Steel  Trust  had  been  formed  in  his 
absence.  Thereupon  he  was  prompted  to  talk 
very  frankly  to  the  newspaper  reporters.  This  is 
the  substance  of  what  he  said  while  here : 

‘  ‘  To  repeat :  prices  are  abnormally  high.  That  is  the  crux  of 
the  whole  problem.  Steel  rails  cost  thirty  per  cent,  more  to-day 
than  they  did  three  years  ago.  Car  bodies  that  I  purchased  three 
years  ago  for  $1,850  now  cost  $3,600.  That  is  too  much;  it  is 
not  warranted. 

Yes,  I  am  opposed  to  Trusts,  and  why  should  I  not  be  ? 
Their  influence  has  raised  the  price  of  everything  we  use.  The 
rise  in  the  price  of  some  of  our  material  is  beyond  reason. 77 

Returning  to  London  he  again  talked  freely  to 
the  reporters ;  and  here  are  two  cabled  accounts 
of  what  he  said : 

London,  Feb.  4.— In  an  interview  Charles  T.  Yerkes  declared 
that  the  American  Trusts  are  raising  prices  so  rapidly  as  to  de¬ 
stroy  their  power  to  compete  with  the  markets  of  Europe;  that 


314 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


the  increased  prices  in  everything  in  the  United  States  are  due  to 
the  iniiation  of  capital  when  the  Steel  Trust  was  formed;  and 
that  there  is  a  prospect  of  the  election  of  a  Democratic  President. 

1  ‘  Trust  owners  in  the  United  States,”  Mr.  Yerkes  said,  “num¬ 
ber  about  six  hundred.  They  have  many  satellites  who  would 
support  them,  but  the  masses  of  the  people  are  suspicious  and  see 
danger  in  their  growing  power. 

‘  ‘  The  Republican  party  is  partly  associated  in  the  public  mind 
with  Trusts.  Roosevelt  has  opposed  them,  but  Trust  leaders 
know  that  even  if  he  is  re-elected  a  Republican  Congress  will 
prevent  him  from  doing  them  much  harm.  People  are  aware  of 
this,  and  there  is  a  possibility  that  they  will  elect  a  Democratic 
anti-trust  President  and  Congress. 

“The  moment  has  come  for  a  new  man  to  rise  in  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  ranks;  a  man  of  the  right  kind,  who  may  sweep  the  field. 
Where  is  the  man,  you  ask?  Where  was  the  man  when  Lincoln 
appeared  ? 

“I  see  little  to  fear  from  the  increasing  power  of  the  unions. 
The  workingmen  saw  capitalists  forming  unions  and  reaping 
millions,  and  they  said  they  would  unite  and  try  to  get  their 
share.  Can  you  blame  them  ?  7 7 

London,  February  4.— Mr.  Charles  T.  Yerkes,  who  returned 
to  London  on  Sunday,  tells  the  British  public,  through  the  me¬ 
dium  of  the  Daily  Mail  this  morning,  that  the  Trusts  are  so  rais¬ 
ing  prices  in  America  as  to  destroy  their  power  to  compete  with 
manufactured  goods  in  the  markets  of  Europe. 

“When  1  was  in  America, 77  he  said,  “I  was  asked  if  I  had 
come  there  to  purchase  material  for  my  London  railways.  ‘Ev¬ 
erything  that  can  be  made  in  England  I  am  getting  on  the  spot, 7 
I  said.  ‘But  even  if  I  had  not  resolved  to  do  this,  I  could  not 
buy  from  America.  Your  prices  have  so  increased  that  you  are 
too  dear. 7 

‘  ‘  This  is  true  of  the  prices  of  steel  goods,  which  have  generally 
risen  twenty-five  per  cent.  This  is  bound  to  come  from  the  great 
inflation  of  capital  that  took  place  when  the  Steel  Trust  was 
formed.  Millions  of  dollars  were  added  on  to  the  intrinsic  value 
of  the  companies  absorbed.  Interest  on  this  additional  money 
can  only  be  paid  by  increasing  the  price  to  the  consumer. 

“Everything  outside  articles  of  personal  use  moves  in  sympa¬ 
thy  with  steel.  The  consequence  is  that  we  have  now  reached  a 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


315 


position  where  American  manufactured  goods,  which  were  for¬ 
merly  sold  in  Europe,  can  no  longer  find  a  market  here  because 
of  their  increased  cost.  ” 

Mr.  James  J.  Hill,  the  hard-working,  clear¬ 
headed,  and  thoroughly  competent  railroad  man 

whose  Anglo-Saxon  breeding  and  American  op¬ 
portunities  have  enabled  him  to  rise  from  poverty 
and  obscurity  and  rank  himself  with  the  six  men 
(Cassatt,  Vanderbilt,  Morgan,  Hill,  Harriman 
and  Gould)  who  control  our  great  railroad  sys¬ 
tems  Mr.  Hill  sees  plainly  that  something  has 
got  to  happen;  and  so  he  joins  Mr.  Vanderlip  in 
uttering  solemn  warnings  through  the  newspa¬ 
pers.  Talking  about  regulating  the  corporations, 
Mr.  Hill  pithily  remarked  to  a  press  reporter: 

4  i  What  is  wanted  is  legislation  preventing  the 
watering  of  stock.  Make  that  restriction  and  a 
great  good  will  be  accomplished.  ’  ’  Then  he  drift¬ 
ed  to  a  discussion  of  home  and  foreign  trade 
prospects : 

He  denied  flatly,  but  deprecatingly,  that,  as  the  average  per¬ 
son  believes,  the  United  States  is  the  leading  manufacturing  na¬ 
tion,  and  is  rapidly  gathering  to  its  bosom  the  markets  of  the 
entire  world.  This  misapprehension,  he  averred,  is  the  result  of 
the  fact  that  over  one  industrial  victory  the  country  sets  up  a 
louder  shout  than  England,  Germany  or  France  makes  over  a 
dozen. 

“The  truth  is,”  said  Mr.  Hill,  reflectively,  “that  this  country 
is  losing  ground  in  a  manufacturing  way,  and  will  do  very  well 
even  to  hold  her  own  markets.  It  is  a  wrong  impression  that  we 
are  sweeping  all  competitors  aside.  They  are  sweeping  us  aside, 
and  why?  Because  of  the  high  cost  of  production  here.  And 
the  high  cost  of  production  is  due  to  the  growth  of  labor  union¬ 
ism  and  the  continued  strife  going  on  among  the  unions  as  well 
as  between  the  men  and  their  employers.  We  can’t  meet  the 
prices  of  German  and  English  manufacturers  and  pay  the  wages 


316 


JEFFEKSONIAN  DEMOCKACY. 


which  the  unions  compel.  So  long  as  the  tariff  is  maintained  we 
may  hold  our  own  markets,  but  some  day,  perhaps,  the  people  in 
the  West— and  they  represent  a  majority  of  the  population— will 
kick  over;  will  demand  that  the  tariff  be  lowered.  This  senti¬ 
ment  increases  the  further  West  one  goes. 

‘ *  Germany  is  leading  the  world  now,  and  is  making  much 
swifter  progress  than  this  country  or  any  other.  England  has 
dropped  behind.  Labor  unions  aided  in  killing  her  industrially. 
France  is  like  a  bee— always  busy,  always  hustling.  In  France 
it  is  father  and  son  and  so  on.  But  Germany  is  the  country  that 
is  forging  ahead.  Her  laborers  work  very  cheaply;  they  spend 
sixty-six  hours  in  the  factory  each  week,  where  we  spend  but 
forty-four;  and  her  mechanics  are  superior.  In  addition  she  has 
facilities  for  transporting  her  products  from  and  to  every  part 
of  the  globe  at  very  cheap  rates.  Before  we  can  get  out  and 
compete  with  her  in  the  markets  of  the  world,  we  must  lower  the 
cost  of  producing  manufactured  articles,  and  must  elevate  the 
quality  of  our  products. 

“We  are  coming  to  a  grave  industrial  reverse.  It  is  hard  to 
tell  just  when  it  will  come,  but  it  is  approaching.  It  may  come 
next  Presidential  year;  and  the  result  of  it  will  depend  largely 
upon  who  is  nominated  for  President.  The  fact  that  money  was 
hard  last  fall  was  a  check  on  the  wild  speculation  in  manufac¬ 
turing  securities,  and,  no  doubt,  postponed  the  reverse  which  is 
destined  to  overtake  us.  There  seems  to  be  too  much  confidence 
in  the  ability  of  the  country  to  walk  right  ahead  of  all  other 
countries  in  manufacturing.  The  country  can  do  it;  but  not 
without  trouble,  and  not  without  changing  its  present  course. 
It  is  indeed  a  grave  crisis  we  are  approaching,  although  few  seem 
to  appreciate  it.  A  few  years  may  see  the  closing  of  many  fac¬ 
tories  and  the  throwing  out  of  work  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
men.  We  have  been  reaping  the  harvest,  and  the  reverse  is  com¬ 
ing.  How  quickly  we  recover  from  it  will  depend  largely  on  who 
is  at  the  head  of  the  country  when  the  break  comes. 1  ’ 

Same  old  scare  game— same  old  threat  of  an¬ 
other  panic— same  old  “peril”  of  the  Labor  Un¬ 
ions— same  old  delusion  that  long  hours  and  low 
wages  make  cheap  production— same  absurd  no¬ 
tion  that  “England  has  dropped  behind”— same 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


317 


new  and  laughable  belief  that  “Germany  is  lead¬ 
ing  the  world.  ’  ’  Verily,  Hill  is  beginning  to  rival 
Carnegie  as  a  political  philosopher. 

But  there  is  one  radical  difference  between  the 
two.  Carnegie  knows  exactly  what  he  is  about. 
He  is  talking,  writing,  giving,  and  still  working, 
to  a  definite  purpose— that  of  advertising  himself, 
prodigiously  and  permanently,  as  the  greatest 
“benefactor”  that  the  world  has  ever  known. 
On  the  other  hand,  Hill  has  spent  his  long  and 
busy  life  right  here  at  home;  has  made  himself  a 
master  of  the  railroad  business ;  has  won  a  posi¬ 
tion  of  great  power  and  great  wealth  as  his  re¬ 
ward;  and  has  evidently  had  neither  taste  nor 
time  for  the  study  of  other  subjects.  In  conse¬ 
quence— he  thinks  and  talks  like  a  school  boy 
when  he  discusses  economic  science  and  political 
history!  If  now  he  will  read  Adam  Smith’s 
“Wealth  of  Nations,”  Rayner’s  “Life  of  Jeffer¬ 
son,”  Prof.  Bemolin’s  “Anglo-Saxon  Superior¬ 
ity,”  any  good  biography  of  John  Bright  (“the 
friend  of  America”  in  1861-65,  when  we  so  need¬ 
ed  friends  in  England),  and  finally,  Hr.  John 
Fiske’s  “Civil  Government  in  the  United  States” 
—then  Mr.  Hill’s  clear  head  will  probably  enable 
him  to  talk  as  sensibly  about  our  political  prob¬ 
lems  as  he  always  talks  sensibly  about  the  rail¬ 
road  business. 

As  to  the  trade  union  peril— Arbitration  seems 
to  he  a  very  sensible  and  serviceable  sort  of  a  de¬ 
vice  !  And  so  long  as  we  have  such  men  as  J  ohn 
Mitchell,  P.  M.  Arthur  and  Samuel  Gompers  in 
command  of  the  labor  forces,  I  fancy  the  Ameri- 


318 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


can  people  will  not  have  occasion  to  lie  awake 
o  ’  nights  worrying  over  ‘ 4  the  growth  of  trade  un- 
]’  Onism.’  * 

“Let  me  say  at  the  outset,  and  with  all  possible  emphasis, 
that  I  am  in  full  accord  with  the  Commission  in  its  condemna¬ 
tion  of  violence  and  intimidation.  Some  of  these  evils  are  per¬ 
haps  inevitable  in  any  great  labor  struggle,  but  I  have  always 
maintained  that  the  worst  enemy  of  our  cause  is  the  man  who 
resorts  to  lawlessness.  ’  ’  —John  Mitchell. 

So  of  the  delusion  that  high  wages  increase  the 
cost  of  production,  and  the  bugaboo  of  our  inabil¬ 
ity  to  compete  against  the  low  wages  and  long 
hours  of  Continental  Europe.  Surely  the  time 
has  come  in  liberty-loving  America  when  strong 
men,  loaded  down  with  millions  of  money,  can 
and  ought  to  have  done  with  this  shameless  vote- 
catching  talk  of  “the  pauper  labor  of  Europe/ ’ 
No  man  alive  knows  better  than  Mr.  Hill  that 
American  farmers,  tilling  their  own  broad  acres, 
have  long  ago  demonstrated  that  they  can  feed  the 
world  at  a  profit,  can  pay  the  highest  farm  wages 
in  the  world,  and  meanwhile  carry  the  heaviest 
burden  of  tariff  taxation  in  all  recorded  history. 
And  they  do  it  because  they  own  the  lands  they 
cultivate,  they  work  early  and  late,  and  they  make 
every  stroke  of  work  count  for  the  largest  possible 
crop.  In  like  manner  American  workingmen  en¬ 
joy  high  wages  solely  because  they  do  more  work 
and  produce  more  wealth — per  man,  per  diem, 
and  per  hour — than  any  other  workingmen  under 
the  sun.  Carnegie  knows  this  to  be  true;  and 
since  his  Protection  appetite  for  Trust-made  mil- 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


319 


lions  has  been  gorged  beyond  desire,  bis  eager  ap¬ 
petite  for  “fame”  has  jirompted  him  to  make  this 
confession  in  cold  print : 

“It  is  not  the  lowest,  but  the  highest-paid  labor,  with  scien¬ 
tific  management  and  machinery,  which  gives  cheapest  products. 
Some  of  the  important  staple  articles  made  in  Britain,  Germany, 
and  America,  are  produced  cheapest  in  the  last,  with  labor  paid 
double. 7  7 

Again  I  appeal  to  plain  common  sense. 

We  are  the  foremost  nation  of  the  earth.  We 
are  in  secure  possession  of  a  heritage  of  liberty 
and  opportunity  the  like  of  which  mankind  has 
never  known  before.  In  all  our  history  previous 
to  the  Civil  War,  we  lived  under  a  tariff  for  reve¬ 
nue  only,  with  the  exception  of  five  years  of  Pro¬ 
tection  duties — under  the  Tariff  of  Abominations, 
between  1828  and  1833.  Without  Protection, 
therefore,  we  grew  from  a  little  band  of  adven¬ 
turers,  settling  in  Virginia  in  1607,  to  a  great  Na¬ 
tion  of  31,443,321  freemen  in  1860.  Under  the 
Compromise  Tariff  of  1833,  and  then  under  the 
Free  Trade  Tariff  of  1846,  our  iron  industry  was 
thriving  as  it  had  never  thrived  before,  each  year 
showing  a  steady  advance  in  production ;  our  cot¬ 
ton  spinning  industry  was  jubilant  and  boastful 
of  a  destiny  to  outdo  the  mother  country ;  our  sea 
commerce  was  the  pride  of  the  nation ;  American 
Clippers  were  famous  the  world  over;  and  we 
were  challenging  England  for  first  place  in  the 
volume  of  world  wide  commerce. 

Then  it  was  that  the  sin  of  Slavery,  and  the  like 
sin  of  Protection,  first  cursed  us  with  Civil  War, 
and  then  further  cursed  us  with  an  enormous  bur¬ 
den  of  war  taxes.  Thus,  and  thus  only,  the  Tar- 


320 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


iff  Wall  was  reared  high  to  shut  us  in  upon  our¬ 
selves— much  as  the  stone  Wall  of  China  shut  in 
the  Chinese.  From  that  hour,  we  have  lived  with¬ 
in  our  national  boundary  lines  much  as  though  the 
great  outer  world  of  trade  and  opportunity  did 
not  exist. 

And  when  the  Civil  War  came  to  curse  us,  the 
aristocrats  who  govern  England  saw  their  oppor¬ 
tunity— and  straightway  did  precisely,  and  only, 
what  was  needed  to  destroy  our  splendid  sea  com¬ 
merce.  That  is  to  say,  they  built  the  “  Alabama” 
and  other  war  ships,  and  they  armed  and  sold 
them  to  the  Southern  Confederacy,  with  no  other 
thought  or  aim  than  to  provide  the  needful  means 
for  sweeping  our  commerce  from  the  seas !  Four 
years  of  civil  war  and  naval  privateering  com¬ 
pletely  disarmed  us  as  England’s  rival  for  world 
wide  trade.  The  iron  steamship  had  already 
begun  to  supplant  the  wooden  sailing  ship;  Pro¬ 
tection  made  iron  and  steel  so  high  in  cost  here, 
as  compared  with  free  trade  England,  that  our 
ship-builders  found  it  impossible  to  compete ;  and 
the  stupid  restrictions  of  our  still-existing  navi¬ 
gation  laws— “a  manifest  violation  of  the  rights 
of  mankind” — finished  the  foul  work  by  destroy¬ 
ing  the  great  industry  of  ship-building  and  ship 
sailing,  in  which  we  had  proved  our  capacity  to 
excel  the  world. 

“The  Anglo-Americans  have  always  displayed  a  very  decided 
taste  for  the  sea.  The  declaration  of  independence  broke  the 
commercial  restrictions  which  united  them  to  England,  and  gave 
a  fresh  and  powerful  stimulus  to  their  maritime  genius.  Ever 
since  that  time  the  shipping  of  the  union  has  increased  in  almost 
the  same  rapid  proportion  as  the  number  of  its  inhabitants.  The 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


321 


Americans  themselves  now  transport  to  their  own  shores  nine- 
tenths  of  the  European  produce  which  they  consume.  And  they 
also  bring  three-quarters  of  the  exports  of  the  new  world  to  the 
European  consumer.  The  ships  of  the  United  States  fill  the 
docks  of  Havre  and  of  Liverpool,  while  the  number  of  English 
and  French  vessels  which  are  to  be  seen  at  New  York  is  compara¬ 
tively  small.  Thus,  not  only  does  the  American  merchant  face 
competition  in  his  own  country,  but  he  even  supports  that  of 
foreign  nations  in  their  own  ports  with  success.  ’ 1 

—M.  de  Tocqueville  in  1835. 

Fortunately,  however,  the  brave  souls  who  fled 
from  Europe  to  escape  the  tyranny  and  slavery 
of  a  “legalized’ 9  aristocracy,  had  lived  in  Europe, 
had  traveled  in  Europe,  and  had  traded  with  Eu¬ 
rope.  For  that  reason,  when  they  met  in  immor¬ 
tal  conclave,  first  to  declare  Independence,  and 
next  to  enact  the  Constitution,  this,  by  unanimous 
consent,  they  provided : 

“No  tax  or  duty  shall  be  laid  on  articles  exported  from  any 
State.  No  preference  shall  be  given  by  any  regulation  of  com¬ 
merce  or  revenue  to  the  ports  of  one  State  over  those  of  an¬ 
other;  nor  shall  vessels  bound  to,  or  from,  one  State,  be  obliged 
to  enter,  clear,  or  pay  duties  in  another. 1 1 

Thus  they  gave  us  the  inestimable  boon  of  ab¬ 
solute  Free  Trade  among  the  States. 

Life-long  believers  in  Protection— men  who 
have  inherited  and  grown-up  to  that  belief— un¬ 
doubtedly  feel  that,  whatever  evils  may  be 
charged  against  Protection,  it  has  certainly  made 
us  a  great  manufacturing  people.  But  the  exact 
contrary  is  the  truth.  Free  trade— among  our¬ 
selves— is  what  has  built-up  our  great  industries. 
Free  trade— throughout  the  German  Empire— is 
what  has  built-up  Germany’s  great  industries 


322  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

since  1871.  Free  trade — with  all  the  world — is 
what  has  built-up  Britain’s  great  industries  since 
1846. 

In  ancient  times,  it  was  free  trade— upon  Medi¬ 
terranean  waters— that  enriched  the  Phoenicians 
and  the  Greeks.  Then  in  Roman  history,  it  was 
free  trade— throughout  the  Empire— with  conti¬ 
nental  highways  supplementing  sea  commerce— 
that  made  Rome  the  greatest  and  richest  military 
power  in  all  history. 

All  of  this  is  perfectly  apparent  to  those  who 
have  taken  time  to  study  the  facts ;  not  an  econo¬ 
mist  of  rank  who  has  ever  written  upon  the  sub¬ 
ject  but  affirms  its  truth ;  and  now  that  the  Protec¬ 
tion  promoters  have  combined  our  manufacturing 
industries  to  enrich  themselves  by  taxing  the  peo¬ 
ple  through  high  prices,  I  think  a  very  brief  re¬ 
view  of  historic  facts  will  make  the  truth  evident 
to  every  reader. 

After  our  Declaration  of  Independence  in  1776, 
and  until  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  in  1788, 
the  thirteen  States  were  in  perpetual  conflict  over 
export  and  import  taxes  as  between  each  other. 
Several  of  the  States  were  up  to  the  point  of  ac¬ 
tual  warfare ;  and  the  exact  situation  is  thus  con¬ 
cisely  recorded  by  Dr.  John  Fiske: 

“Congress  (the  Continental  Congress)  was  bankrupt;  foreign 
nations  were  scoffing  at  us;  Connecticut  had  barely  escaped  from 
war  with  Pennsylvania  and  New  York  with  New  Hampshire; 
there  were  riots  and  bloodshed  in  Vermont;  Rhode  Island  seemed 
on  the  verge  of  civil  war;  Massachusetts  was  actually  engaged 
in  suppressing  armed  rebellion;  Connecticut  and  New  Jersey 
were  threatening  commercial  non-intercourse  with  New  York. 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


323 


Spain  was  defying  us  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi;  and  a 
party  in  Virginia  was  entertaining  the  idea  of  a  separate  South¬ 
ern  confederacy. 1 1 

The  policy  of  local  high  tariffs  directed  against  the  neigh¬ 
boring  states  had  been  temporarily  successful,  although  it  was 
already  threatening  New  York  with  a  war. 

The  jealousy  between  large  and  small  states  was  more  bitter 
than  it  is  now  possible  for  us  to  realize.  *  *  *  *  It  was 

m  a  solemn  mood  that  our  statesmen  assembled  in  Philadelphia ; 
and  the  first  question  to  be  settled,  one  that  must  be  settled  be¬ 
fore  any  further  work  could  be  done,  was  the  way  in  which  power 

was  to  be  shared  between  the  states  and  the  general  govern¬ 
ment.  1 1 

Now  if  we  wish  to  know  exactly  what  has  made 
us  a  great  manufacturing  people— we  need  only 
turn  to  the  Rectorial  Address  delivered  by  An¬ 
drew  Carnegie  at  St.  Andrews  University,  near 
Edinburgh,  Scotland,  on  Oct.  22,  1902,  when  that 
staunch  Protectionist  99  donned  his  honors  as 

Lord  Rector.  ’ ,  In  this  address  Mr.  Carnegie 
said  : 

The  American  has  a  constantly  expanding  home  demand,  urg¬ 
ing  him  to  extensions,  and  justifying  costly  improvements  and 
the  adoption  of  new  processes.  He  has  also  a  continent  under 
one  government.  He  establishes  his  several  works  at  the  centres 
of  the  various  markets.  If  a  needed  ingredient  be  found  in  one 
State,  another  somewhere  else;  if  it  be  desirable  to  construct 
works  for  one  part  of  a  process  here,  or  there,  or  ply  ships,  or 
build  railroads  in  any  part  of  this  broad  area,  he  proceeds  with¬ 
out  hesitation,  dreading  neither  interference  with  supplies,  hos¬ 
tile  legislation,  nor  national  antipathies.  ‘No  pent-up  Utica 
contracts  his  powers : '  more  the  boundless  continent  is  his,  as  are 
all  its  markets,  free  f rom  tariff.  His  operations  are  free  from 
start  to  finish. 

The  result  is  that  every  process  of  manufacture  in  the  Union 
flows  naturally  to  the  localities  lest  adapted  for  it,  there  being 
no  barriers  to  free  selection.  The  best  places  also  are  selected 
for  assembling  materials,  raw  or  partially  prepared,  for  their 


324 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


final  forms.  In  short,  it  is  free,  unrestricted  trade  in  everything 
under  the  same  conditions,  same  laws,  same  flag,  and  free  mar¬ 
kets  everywhere  over  an  expanding  continent — advantages  which 
only  those  experienced  in  industrial  trade  will  estimate  at  their 
full  value . 

‘ 1  The  European  manufacturer  finds  obstacles  to  such  varied  ex¬ 
pansion  in  a  continent  divided  into  hostile  and  warring  States, 
with  different  laws  and  exactions  and  tariffs  at  every  boundary, 
the  fear  of  war  overhanging  all.  He  is  almost  compelled  to  con¬ 
fine  his  investments  and  works  to  the  small  area  of  his  own 
country  and  its  small  home  market.  7  1 

Then  straightway  this  44 staunch  Protectionist’ ’ 
cites  Germany  as  another  country  in  which  abso¬ 
lute  free  trade  among  the  States  has  produced  the 
same  inevitable  results— in  the  brief  time  since 
Bismarck  did  his  great  work  in  abolishing  her  lit¬ 
tle  rival  States,  with  their  separate  tariff  laws; 
and  especially,  since  he  gave  her  a  uniform  cur¬ 
rency  based  securely  upon  gold.  Speaking  of 
Germany  4 4 Lord  liector”  Carnegie  says: 

1 1  As  long  as  she  was  cut  up  into  petty  divisions,  with  different 
laws  and  tariffs,  she  hacl  no  international  position  industrially — 
it  was  impossible  she  could  have.  United  into  one  empire,  with 
free  trade  over  the  whole  area,  giving  a  home  market  of  56,000,- 
000  people,  she  only  needed  to  encourage  the  development  of  her 
resources,  which  was  wise  statesmanship  ( observe  the  shrewd, 
pocket-interest  qualification!)  to  become  the  dangerous  rival  of 
Britain,  and  even  to  outstrip  her  in  the  most  important  article 
of  all,  steel. 

“The  coming  century  is  to  look  back  upon  the  present  petty 
political  divisions  of  Europe  with  the  feelings  we  of  to-day  en¬ 
tertain  for  the  one  hundred  and  fourteen  little  States  of  Ger¬ 
many  and  their  pygmy  monarchs  of  the  past  century,  with  their 
thirty-four  tariff  barriers  to  commerce  and  travel  on  the  'Rhine, 
resembling  the  Likin  of  China. 

“More  and  more  clearly  must  the  truth  be  realized  that  the 
industrial  struggle  among  the  nations  is  bound  up  with  the  politi¬ 
cal,  the  question  of  magnitude  being  at  the  bottom  of  supremacy 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


325 


in  both.  A  nation  cannot  be  small  in  size  and  in  population  and 
remain  great  in  material  products  or  material  power.  To  main¬ 
tain  first  rank  industrially,  commercially  or  financially,  small 
nations  must  merge  with  others  and  become  prosperous  parts  of 
one  great  federated  power.  Once  the  race  was  between  separate 
nations;  henceforth  it  is  between  continents. 

“Ask  yourself  this  question:  If  America  had  been  composed 
of  petty,  independent,  jealous  States,  as  Europe  is,  each  afraid 
of  the  other,  and  armed  to  the  teeth  against  expected  attack, 
and  had  erected  tariff  harriers  against  the  'products  of  each 
other ,  would  Europe  ever  have  heard  of  the  American  Industrial 
Invasion?  To  ask  the  question  is  to  answer  it — never. 

“Ask  yourselves  another  question.  Can  Europe,  as  long  as 
she  remains  divided  into  hostile  camps,  ever  hope  to  conquer  for¬ 
eign  markets  or  even  to  repel  the  American  invasion?  That 
question  also  answers  itself — never.  ’  ’ 

Of  course  “Lord  Rector' '  Carnegie's  pocket-in¬ 
terest  inspired  him,  throughout  a  long  and  pro¬ 
digiously  profitable  career  among  us,  to  teach  that 
a  Chinese  wall  of  Protection  about  our  seacoasts 
and  boundaries  was  the  part  of  “wise  statesman¬ 
ship" — to  preserve  our  precious  “home  market," 
West  of  the  Alleghenies,  for  his  harvest  of  mil¬ 
lions.  In  like  manner,  to  present  a  show  of  con¬ 
sistency,  he  reasons  that  Germany  “only  needed 
to  encourage  the  development  of  her  resources" 
— to  enable  her  to  rival  us  in  Trusts  and  syndi¬ 
cates.  But  Prance  and  her  forty  millions  of  fight¬ 
ing  freemen,  with  their  Greek-like  record  in  phil¬ 
osophy,  literature  and  art,  and  with  her  truly 
marvelous  record  of  great  inventions — France 
has  tried  Protection  to  no  purpose.  And  Russia, 
with  her  more  than  one  hundred  millions  of  Cau¬ 
casians,  and  her  matchless  and  immeasurable 
resources— Russia  has  tried  Protection  all  in 
vain. 


326 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


We  further  know,  as  Carnegie  knows,  admits, 
and  glories  in  the  fact,  that  Cobden  and  Bright- 
untitled,  poor,  hard-working  and  plain-spoken 
patriots  that  they  were — won  immortality  for 

THEMSELVES  BY  OVERTHROWING  PROTECTION  AND 
GIVING  THEIR  NATIVE  LAND  THE  PRICELESS  BLESSING 

of  free  trade.  Knowing  this,  Carnegie,  the 
‘ 4  staunch  Protectionist,  ’  ’  has  not  one  word  to  say 
in  favor  of  Protection  for  Britain — where  he  was 
born,  and  where,  naturally,  he  prefers  to  live  and 
die.  No,  no;  Protection  is  for  America — where 
he  has  made  millions  through  the  ‘  ‘  patriotic 9  ’ 
system  of  taxing  the  many  to  enrich  the  few.  And 
so  when  “Lord  Rector”  Carnegie  talks  to  his 
home  audience  about  the  true  secrets  of  manufac¬ 
turing  progress  and  supremacy— he  tells  them  the 
truth !  Here  is  what  he  says : 

1 1  In  studying  the  manufacturing  world,  Britain  claimed  more 
attention  than  all  other  nations  together,  for  here  was  the  seat 
and  throne  of  manufactures.  We  examine  the  globe  and  note 
how  much  is  marked  red  under  the  Union  Jack,  and  speculate 
upon  what  would  be  left  if  this  were  obliterated.  But  if  in 
viewing  the  world’s  material  development  we  should  consider 
what  would  be  left  if  her  inventions  were  deleted ,  a  greater  void 
still  would  be  found  in  this  nobler  field  of  conquest,  for  this 
island  has  also  been  the  seat  and  throne  of  invention,  the  work, 
not  of  the  barbarous  sword,  but  of  the  brain  of  civilized  man. 
That  development  rests  upon  the  steam-engine  of  Watt,  one 
arm  of  which  embraced  the  sea  through  the  steamship  of  Sym¬ 
ington,*  another  covered  the  land  through  the  locomotive  of 
Stephenson.  Here  is  the  great  triad  which  has  created  the  mod¬ 
ern  material  world.  This  audience  will  not  fail  to  note  with  sat¬ 
isfaction  that  all  of  these  magicians  were  Scotch  (the  first  two 
native-born,  the  last  by  descent) — a  remarkable  fact,  and  not  to 


•Did  ever  mortal  man  see  so  brazen  an  attempt  to  rob  Fulton  of  the 
honor  which  he  won,  in  demonstrating  practically  the  utility  and  Im¬ 
measurable  value  of  the  steam  engine  when  applied  to  navigation? 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


327 


be  readily  accounted  for  except  upon  an  hypothesis  which  nation¬ 
al  modesty  prevents  a  born  Scot  from  suggesting  here  in  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  so  many  distinguished  members  of  other  nations.  Ark¬ 
wright,  Hargreaves,  and  Cartwright,  through  their  inventions, 
brought  economical  spinning  and  weaving  of  textiles;  those  of 
Nelson  and  Cort,  cheap  iron;  Bessemer,  Siemens,  Martin  and 
Thomas,  cheap  steel,  the  most  important  article  of  all,  since  it 
is  the  basis  of  so  many  other  articles.  It  is  the  inventions  of 
these  men  based  upon  steam  that  have  revolutionized  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  human  life  upon  the  earth;  and,  in  passing,  will  you  be 
good  enough  to  note  how  many  of  these,  and  indeed  of  the  su¬ 
premely  great  in  other  fields  as  well,  have  at  first  worked  with  their 
hands?  Whatever  the  future  may  have  in  store,  nothing  can  rob 
Britain  of  the  credit  of  having  given  to  the  world  the  means  for 
its  surprising  development.  Material  Progress  is  Britain  ’s  child. 
At  the  time  of  which  I  speak,  she  was  the  only  important  manu¬ 
facturing  nation,  for  here  naturally  her  inventions  were  first  util¬ 
ized.  The  reward  obtained  from  this  monopoly — for  such  it  was 
—made  her  the  richest  of  all  peoples  per  capita.  Her  realized 
wealth  is  still  unequaled.  Forty-odd  years  ago  she  made  more 
iron  and  steel,  manufactured  more  machinery,  mined  more  coal, 
wove  more  cloth,  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  It  was  Britain 
in  the  one  scale,  the  world  in  the  other,  the  world  kicking  the 
beam.  In  the  dawn  of  this  prosperity  came  Cobden  and  Bright, 
who  insured  cheaper  food  for  the  workers,  which  further  stimu¬ 
lated  manufacturing  and  insured  Britain’s  preeminence.  The 
theories  of  these  great  men  and  their  school  were  justified  in 
their  day,  one  being  that  the  various  nations  of  the  world  were 
created  with  different  qualities  and  resources,  all  so  beautifully 
arranged  that  one  was  to  supplement  the  other.  Britain’s  des¬ 
tined  part  clearly  was  to  manufacture  the  raw  materials  of  other 
lands.  Interchange  of  raw  and  finished  and  of  different  prod¬ 
ucts,  was  evidently  Nature’s  intention,  thus  uniting  the  nations 
in  the  noble  task  of  supplying  each  other’s  wants.  Nations  were 
destined  to  be  cooperating  parts  in  one  grand  whole,  and  thus 
Commerce  became  the  golden  chain  to  bind  the  world  in  bonds  of 
peace  and  goodwill.  There  was  only  one  flaw  in  the  entrancing 
theory,  but  that  was  fatal— the  various  members  were  not  satis¬ 
fied  with  the  parts  assigned  to  them  in  the  beneficent  drama. 
On  the  contrary,  each  evinced  the  strongest  desire  to  develop  its 


* 


328  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

resources  and  manufacture  its  own  raw  materials  as  far  as  pos¬ 
sible.  None  relished  being  the  mere  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers 
of  water  to  another  nation:  all  wanted  to  play  Hamlet,  and  as  is 
usual  in  the  most  talented  companies  of  performers,  all  believed 
themselves  destined  by  nature  for  the  great  part.  There  came  to 
the  aid  of  the  new,  ambitious  lands  automatic  machinery  and> 
scientific  methods  which  largely  solved  the  question  of  shilled 
labor .  A  few  managing  Britons,  or  Americans,  can  now  readily 
be  obtained  to  establish  manufactures  in  any  part  of  the  world, 
and  educate  the  natives  to  become  satisfactory  workers. 1  f 

And  so  lie  wanders  on,  preaching  Protection 
for  America  and  Free  Trade  for  Britain,  in  the 
amazing  delusion  that  thinking  men  do  not  see 
through  him;  and  in  the  more  amazing  delusion 
that  it  will  be  possible  for  his  millions  of  godless, 
Protection-made  money  to  literally  buy  for  cash, 
the  love  and  gratitude  of  mankind. 

Now  let  us  be  sensible,  fearless,  and  free ! 

American  manufacturers  absolutely  know  that 
they  can  produce  cheaper  in  the  United  States 
than  in  any  other  country  under  the  sun— provid¬ 
ed  always,  that  they  can  buy  the  staple  materials 
of  production  at  reasonable  prices.  In  simple 
truth,  our  manufacturers  have  no  more  need  for 
Protection  than  a  candidate  for  Congress  has 
need  for  a  baby’s  bottle.  We  have  passed  the  in¬ 
fant’s  stage  in  both  politics  and  industry.  We 
mean  to  have  done  with  this  tomfoolery  of  parad¬ 
ing  a  political  platform  of  “infant  industries” 
needing  a  nursing  bottle.  What  our  manufactur¬ 
ers  now  need  and  want,  is  to  be  rid  of  the  extor¬ 
tionate  prices  which  the  combinations  and  Trusts 
exact  for  iron  and  steel,  for  copper  and  brass,  for 
tin  and  lead — for  each  and  every  article  in  the  en¬ 
tire  list  of  materials  entering  into  manufacture . 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


329 


And  to  insure  reasonable  prices  for  these  staples 
of  modern  specialized  production,  what  they  fur¬ 
ther  need,  and  what  they  have  often  voted  for,  is 
free  raw  material— free  iron  ore,  free  coal,  free 
oil,  free  copper,  free  lead,  free  lumber,  free  hides, 
free  wool,  and  free  everything  that  is  drawn  from 
mother  earth,  Nature’s  bounty  to  mankind! 

The  student  of  political  and  economic  history 
can  see  plainly  enough  that  the  wave  of  depres  ¬ 
sion  which  lately  overspread  all  Europe,  while  we 
have  been  phenomenally  prosperous,  was  due 
wholly  to  the  advent  of  the  United  States  as  a 
world  power — due  specifically  to  fear  of  our  com¬ 
petition,  and  dread  of  the  political  disturbances 
certain  to  follow  at  home  should  that  competition 
press  hard.  We  need,  therefore,  to  now  take  care¬ 
ful  note  of  these  facts:  Europe  is  armed  to  the 
teeth.  She  has  a  total  of  410  warships  to  our  35. 
"Self  preservation  is  the  first  law  of  nature.” 
Russia  and  Germany  are  already  fighting  us  with 
tariffs.  Austria  and  Hungary  are  preparing  to 
do  so.  Protection  sentiment  is  struggling  hard  to 
take  fresh  root  throughout  all  Britain— as  the  di¬ 
rect  result  of  our  sinful  example.  The  smaller 
European  power  are  near  akin  to  the  greater. 
"Nations  like  individuals  are  governed  by  their 
interest.  ’  ’  They  will  fight  us  with  tariffs  first ; 
and  later,  they  will  fight  us  with  armies  and 
navies  as  surely  as  the  sun  shines,— especially  if 
we  dare  attempt  to  ruin  their  industries  and  peri¬ 
odically  impoverish  their  patient  workers  by 
making  Europe  a  ‘  ‘  dumping  ground  for  our  sur¬ 
plus,”  as  Lord  Rector  Carnegie  so  cunningly  ad¬ 
vocates  in  defense  of  Protection. 


330 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


Plainly,  it  is  fight  or  fair  play. 

There  is  no  need  of  fighting,  and  every  interest 
now  prompts  fair  play.  But,  obviously,  if  we  are 
to  enjoy  the  blessings  of  peace  and  fair  trading, 
there  is  pressing  need  for  prompt  action.  For 
even  the  dullest  mind  now  understands  that  poli¬ 
tics  lie  back  of  all  business,  as  well  as  all  wars . 
Life-long  believers  in  Protection  see  plainly  that 
selfish  interest  inspires  those  who  continue  to 
preach  so  senseless  and  dangerous  a  policy. 
Every  thinking  man  knows  that  we  can  not 
go  on  with  this  stupid  system  of  manufac¬ 
turing  Trust-made  millionaires  through  taxing 
ourselves  and  dumping  our  surplus  upon 
fighting  freemen  in  Europe.  That  is  Car¬ 
negie  philosophy ;  but  it  is  the  most  inhu¬ 
man,  brutal,  and  senseless  philosophy  that  any 
man  has  ever  dared  to  teach.  It  outrages  every 
sentiment  of  fairness  among  the  millions  of  Eu¬ 
ropean  freemen  who  admire  us,  and  would  fain  be 
our  friends — aiding  steadily  in  the  work  of  pro¬ 
moting  our  trade  and  our  ideas  among  their  kin¬ 
dred  at  home.  Beyond  that,  it  teaches  Americans 
the  absurdity  that  there  is  no  profit  in  foreign 
trade.  In  the  light  of  England’s  experience, 
which  we  know,  and  in  the  light  of  our  own  expe¬ 
rience,  which  we  have  simply  forgotten— that  is  a 
teaching  so  senseless  as  to  be  unworthy  of  con¬ 
sideration. 

We  live  in  a  scientific  age.  Men’s  minds  have 
just  begun  to  awake  to  the  infinite  wealth-produc¬ 
ing  possibilities  of  mechanical  power.  We  live  at 
a  time  when  our  foremost  manufacturers  have 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


331 


demonstrated  beyond  denial  that  all  the  secrets  of 
cheap  production  are  to  be  found  in  the  simple 
process  of  substituting  machinery  for  hand  labor. 
We  now  know,  beyond  peradventure,  that  in  au¬ 
tomatic  machinery  operated  by  skilled  mechanics 
at  high  wages,  and  in  specialized  production  un¬ 
der  enlightened  systems  of  management  and  dis¬ 
tribution,  we  have  the  complete  explanation  of  all 
enduring  and  great  success. 

We  have  lately  learned,  also,  that  America  is 
the  home  and  abiding  place  of  mechanical  inven¬ 
tion.  We  have  demonstrated  that  our  mechanics 
lead  the  world  in  originating  automatic  and  semi¬ 
automatic  machinery  which  is  essentially  practi¬ 
cal— which  does  the  work.  Our  progress  in  this 
branch  of  economic  production  has  been,  and  is, 
so  rapid  as  to  astonish  and  alarm  all  Europe. 
And  this  fact  affords  a  complete  explanation  of 
why  foreign  engineers ,  foreign  manufacturers, 
and  foreign  delegations  have  been  visiting  our 
factories  and  hungrily  studying  our  methods  dur¬ 
ing  recent  years. 

It  is,  in  truth,  the  inventors  and  engineers  who 
have  revolutionized  industry,  who  have  annihilat¬ 
ed  distance,  who  have  made  the  world  a  neighbor¬ 
hood,  and  who  will  emancipate  us  from  pauper¬ 
ism  and  all  fear  of  dependence  upon  charity,  if  we 
simply  have  courage  and  common  sense  enough 
to  liberate  our  industries  from  the  burden  of  tar¬ 
iff  taxes — because  they  add  enormously  to  the 
cost  of  production;  liberate  our  commerce  from 
tariff  restrictions— because  they  hamper  and  hold 
back  our  vast  and  growing  foreign  trade;  and  lib- 


332  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

erate  our  finances  from  Trust  promoters— be¬ 
cause  their  sole  purpose  is  to  enrich  themselves 
at  the  whole  people’s  heavy  cost. 

For  the  time  being,  conditions  of  unexampled 
prosperity  born  of  our  definite  adoption  of  the 
single  gold  standard,  coupled  with  last  year ’s  re¬ 
action  jrowj  boom  conditions  in  Germany  and  on 
the  Continent,  have  checked  the  flood  of  orders 
from  Europe.  But  the  check  is  obviously  tem¬ 
porary.  Germany’s  financial  soundness  has 
never  been  questioned,  and  already  she  is  on  the 
up-grade— already  signs  of  her  industrial  recov¬ 
ery  are  many  and  unmistakable.  England  has 
ended  the  Boer  War.  The  work  of  settlement 
and  industrial  development  in  South  Africa  is 
fairly  under  way.  Peace  has  been  restored  to  the 
Philippines.  The  integrity  of  the  Chinese  Em¬ 
pire  is  pledged  in  writing— and  Russia  will  keep 
faith  if  we  insist  upon  it.  Japan,  the  marvel  of 
the  modern  world— now  the  acknowledged  ally  of 
Great  Britain— is  at  the  gateway  of  the  East  to 
guard,  to  inspire,  and  to  lead  in  the  industrial  re¬ 
awakening  of  Five  Hundred  Millions  of  the  in¬ 
dustrious  Mongolian  race.  Lastly,  the  Isthmian 
Canal  is  to  be  built. 

In  a  few  words,  the  world  is  at  peace. 

And  with  peace  assured,  through  simple  fair 
dealing  with  our  European  neighbors ,  men  of 
foresight  in  banking,  commercial  and  indus¬ 
trial  pursuits  see  plainly  that  we  have  en¬ 
tered  upon  an  era  of  industrial  develop¬ 
ment,  at  home  and  abroad,  the  like  of  which 
mankind  has  surely  never  seen  before.  All 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


333 


we  now  need  is  to  put  our  political  house¬ 
hold  in  order.  And  the  next  step  in  that  direc¬ 
tion,  is  to  elect  a  President  and  a  Congress 
who  will  be  faithfully  pledged  to  a  platform  de¬ 
manding  the  immediate  repeal  of  the  Dingley  du¬ 
ties  on  raw  materials  and  all  staple  articles,  like 
iron,  steel,  copper,  tin,  lead,  etc.,  which  enter  into 
the  cost  of  specialized  manufacturing  industry; 
and  beyond  that,  every  duty  that  lays  a  needless 
tax  upon  the  daily  necessaries  of  the  people. 

In  presenting  these  changes  in  our  tariff  sys¬ 
tem  so  that  they  will  appeal  irresistibly  to  the 
common  sense,  the  prudence,  the  patriotism,  and 
the  fairness  of  the  men  who  have  made  American 
institutions  possible,  all  we  need  do  is  turn  to 
“our  friends  the  enemy”  for  suggestions.  Lord 
Rector  Carnegie  wrote  an  essay  in  1895  entitled 
“What  would  I  do  with  the  Tariff  if  I  were 
Czar  f  ’  ’  This  essay  now  forms  the  last  chapter  in 
“The  Empire  of  Business,”  a  book  which  can 
doubtless  be  found  in  every  “public”  library— 
especially  if  that  “public”  library  be  boldly 
branded  Carnegie,  under  a  shrewd  contract  to 
maintain  it  forever  through  taxing  the  people  for 
its  support: 

•‘Oh,  that  mine  adversary  had  written  a 
book! 7 7 

On  page  332  of  this  book,  we  find  the  following 
advice— which  will  now  afford  far  more  comfort 
to  American  tariff-reformers  than  to  the  few 
scheming  millionaires  and  politicians  for  whom  it 
was  shrewdly  intended : 


334 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


“Tariff  duties  as  follows  were  collected  in  1892  on  foreign 
importations  of  the  luxuries  of  the  rich: 


Wool  manufactures .  $32,293,609 

Silk  manufactures .  16,965,637 

Cotton  manufactures .  16,436,733 

Flax  manufactures .  10,066,636 

Class  and  china .  10,339,000 

Wines,  liquors,  etc .  8,935,000 

Tobacco  and  cigars .  11,882,557 


“Here  are  $106,000,000  of  revenue  from  seven  classes  of  lux¬ 
uries,  and  there  are  a  few  others  which  netted  more  than  $8,000,- 
000  additional — jewelry,  carriages,  artificial  flowers,  clocks, 
brushes,  paper,  perfumeries,  musical  instruments — making  $114,- 
000,000  revenue  collected  from  imports  cut  of  the  total  of  $177,- 
000,000.  To  reduce  duties  upon  articles  which  are  all  luxuries  of 
the  rich,  furnishing  two-thirds  of  the  whole  tariff  revenue,  is  the 
chief  result  of  the  Wilson  act. 

‘  ‘  The  statement  cannot  be  disputed  that  these  articles  were 
not  imported  for  the  use  of  the  masses  of  the  people.  With 
woolen  manufactures,  as  those  of  silk,  the  masses  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States  are  supplied  by  the  home  manufacturer  al¬ 
most  exclusively.  The  only  class  which  uses  imported  cloths,  and 
foreign  glass  and  china,  and  foreign  wines  and  tobacco,  is  the 
rich.  To  prevent  the  charge  being  made  that  the  articles  used 
to  any  extent  by  the  masses  might  be  made  dearer  by  the  in¬ 
creased  duties,  the  bill  should  provide  that  woolen,  silk  and  linen 
cloths  of  common  grades  should  be  exempt  from  the  higher 
duties.  Substantially  none  but  the  high  grades  is  imported,  but 
this  clause  would  disarm  criticism.  Had  even  the  duties  of  1892 
been  retained  upon  these  luxuries  of  the  few,  the  present  de¬ 
ficiency  in  the  revenues  would  have  been  much  less  than  now  dis¬ 
turbs  the  national  exchequer.  We  have  here  a  rich  mine, 
indeed,  which  should  be  drawn  from  when  the  next  tariff  legisla¬ 
tion  is  undertaken.  Were  the  duties  upon  these  luxuries 
doubled,  and  another  $114,000,000  collected,  or  if  the  increased 
taxes  diminished  consumption  by  one-fourth  and  the  Government 
obtained  but  half  the  increase,  as  it  still  would  in  that  extreme 
case,  then  we  would  have  taken,  say,  $57,000,000  of  taxation 
from  the  shoulders  of  the  toiling  masses  and  placed  it  upon  those 
of  the  luxurious,  pleasure-loving,  extravagant  class  who  can  be 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


335 


made  to  pay  for  their  extravagance  with  benefit  to  themselves 
and  to  the  nation.  If  50  per  cent,  additional  duty  were  tried,  the 
revenues  would  soon  be  increased  to  almost  the  whole  of  the 
extra  tax.  This  is  neither  protection  nor  free  trade,  and  has 
nothing  to  do  with  either.  It  is  simply  a  question  of  revenue. 
And  it  is  submitted  that  in  no  way  can  the  necessary  revenue  be 
so  wisely  obtained  as  from  foreign  luxuries  consumed  only  by 
the  rich  and  most  extravagant  class  of  the  people.  My  tariff 
would  about  double  present  duties  upon  all  these  luxuries.  * 1 

We  need  not  concern  ourselves  with  Carnegie’s 
reflections  upon  Wilson.  That  patriot’s  work  is 
in  print— and  history  will  take  care  of  Wilson! 
Never  fear.  The  important  point  for  us,  is  to 
note  that  Carnegie ’s  pocket  interest  was  outraged 
first  by  the  McKinley  bill  and  then  later  by  the 
Wilson  bill.  For  that  reason  he  permitted  the 
awful  Homestead  strike  in  1892;  he  fled  to  his 
home  in  Europe,  leaving  Mr.  Frick  to  do  the  dan¬ 
gerous  work  which  he  planned  before  running 
away;  and  then,  in  the  aforesaid  essay,  he  wrote 
what  follows— to  show  McKinley  and  Hanna  that 
he  did  not  intend  to  submit  to  their  policy  of  giv¬ 
ing  cheaper  raw  materials  to  his  Eastern  competi¬ 
tors  in  the  manufacture  of  iron  and  steel: 

‘  ‘  In  regard  to  coal  and  iron  ore,  so-called  raw  materials,  the 
new  tariff  should  maJce  no  further  reductions ,  because  a  reduc¬ 
tion  of  nearly  one-half  of  the  duty  at  one  time,  just  made,  is 
serious,  and  time  is  needed  before  any  industry  can  adjust  itself 
to  so  great  a  change.  Besides,  the  tax  of  forty  cents  per  ton 
upon  ore  and  thirty  cents  per  ton  upon  coal  is  comparatively 
trifling.  This  applies  to  iron  and  steel  generally,  which  have 
suffered  two  reductions  recently;  for  the  McKinley  act  reduced 
these  as  much  as  the  Wilson  act  did— about  30  per  cent,  in  each 
case.  Making  cotton-ties  free  of  duty  when  all  other  forms  of 
steel  were  left  dutiable  is  the  greatest  blot  upon  the  present  tar¬ 
iff— a  piece  of  pure  sectionalism,  the  bane  of  the  Federal  system. 
One-half  of  the  former  duty  should  he  restored.” 


336 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


“  Although  I  am  opposed  to  taxing  the  food  and  the  necessar¬ 
ies  of  the  people,  I  should  make  an  exception  in  regard  to  the 
products  of  Canada.  *  *  *  *  I  should  tax  highly  all  her 

products  entering  the  United  States;  and  this  I  should  do,  not  in 
dislike  of  Canada,  but  for  love  of  her,  in  the  hope  that  it  would 
cause  her  to  realize  that  the  nations  upon  this  Continent  are 
American  nations.  *  *  *  *  I  should  use  the  rod  not  in  an¬ 

ger  but  in  love ;  but  I  should  use  it. 1 1 

Now  observe  bis  fine  play.  Thirty-four  years 
and  one  month  of  high  Protection— from  Febru¬ 
ary,  1861,  when  the  Morrill  bill  was  enacted,  to 
March,  1895,  when  he  was  writing— had  put  the 
Eastern  manufacturers  of  iron  and  steel  entirely 
within  Carnegie7 s  competitive  power — because  of 
the  senseless  duties  and  heavy  freights  they  have 
been  forced  to  pay  on  raw  materials.  He  could 
now  afford  to  assume  an  air  of  generous  indiffer¬ 
ence  to  the  duties  on  “ so-called  raw  materials.” 
But  the  Great  Lakes  region  had  become  the  center 
and  source  of  iron  ore  supplies.  Canada  is  prob¬ 
ably  as  rich  in  iron  ore  as  we  are.  James  J.  Hill 
has  already  located  priceless  deposits.  The  St. 
Lawrence  river,  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  Cana¬ 
dian  railroads  were,  and  are,  there  to  transport 
this  rich  iron  ore  to  any  and  every  point  where  it 
could  be  used  to  compete  with  the  Carnegie  Steel 
Company — West  of  the  Alleghany  mountains,  as 
well  as  to  Niagara  Falls  and  all  points  on  the  At¬ 
lantic  Seaboard.  So  Carnegie  would  “make  an 
exception  in  regard  to  the  products  of  Canada 
he  would  “ tax  highly  all  her  products 97 — for  ob¬ 
vious  reasons !  Beyond  this,  the  Pennsylvania 
Eailroad  Company,  under  Mr.  Cassatt’s  wise 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


337 


management,  was  beginning  to  threaten  trouble 
over  the  'preferential  freight  rates  which  Car¬ 
negie  has  always  enjoyed ! 

Now  we  are  getting  close  home— Now  we  shall 
see  how  the  tariff,  the  Trusts,  and  the  railroads, 
are  inseparably  linked  by  “community-of-inter- 
est”  Now  we  shall  see  that  Carnegie  knew  how 
to  beat  his  competitors  through  lower  freight 
rates,  just  as  rebates  and  drawbacks  enabled 
Rockefeller  to  beat  his  competitors  in  oil  back  in 
the  seventies — And  now  we  shall  see  precisely 
how  Carnegie  forced  the  formation  of  the 
Steel  Trust. 

At  the  time  the  Steel  Trust  was  in  process  of 
organization,  the  well-informed  Pittsburg  corre¬ 
spondent  of  the  New  York  J  ournal  of  Commerce 
and  Commercial  Bulletin  sent  this  interesting 
piece  of  information  to  his  paper: 

Whatever  the  exact  shape  that  the  financial  transaction  may 
take  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  it  represents  the  termination 
of  a  battle  between  modern  financial  giants.  The  contest  may 
be  said  to  have  grown  out  of  the  ‘community  of  interest  '  idea  or 
policy  which  is  now  controlling  the  railroads.  It  started  its  most 
serious  stage  as  a  result  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad's  policy, 
instituted  in  a  radical  form  by  President  Cassatt,  of  refusing 
cut  rates  in  all  directions,  regardless  of  whether  the  shippers  were 
large  or  small.  Mr.  Carnegie  had  been  used  to  receiving  favor¬ 
able  rates  lower  rates  than  any  of  his  competitors — under  an 
old  agreement,  and  he  resented  Mr.  Cassatt 's  firmness.  The  lat¬ 
ter,  however,  refused  to  renew  the  old  contract.  Mr.  Carnegie 
appealed  to  Mr.  Morgan  without  success,  and  found  himself  bot¬ 
tled  up,  as  it  were,  in  Pittsburg,  with  transportation  facilities  no 
more  advantageous  than  those  of  his  smaller  competitors.  This 
was  a  situation  to  which  a  man  of  his  capital,  nerve  and  energy 
could  not  be  expected  to  quietly  submit,  and  the  next  thing  heard 
was  that  he  had  purchased  acres  upon  acres  on  the  Lake  front 
and  had  made  definite  plans  to  strike  at  Mr.  Morgan 's  steel  inter- 


338 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


ests  at  their  most  vulnerable  point;  namely,  by  building  an  enor¬ 
mous,  up-to-date  tube  plant.  Not  only  did  Mr.  Carnegie  do  this, 
but  he  went  about  it  in  a  practical  way  and  seriously,  apparently, 
in  acquiring  control  of  railroad  property,  with  the  fixed  determin¬ 
ation  of  securing  his  own  road  to  tidewater.  It  was  a  question 
of  fighting  a  determined  man  who  had  ample  capital  and  general 
resources  and  it  was  acknowledged  that  a  contest  under  such  con¬ 
ditions  would  mean  the  loss  of  millions.  Mr.  Cassatt  then  capitu¬ 
lated  and  decided  to  make  concessions  in  rates  for  Mr.  Carnegie, 
but  the  latter  continued  his  belligerent  policy,  and,  it  appears, 
convinced  Mr.  Morgan’s  associates  in  the  steel  business  that  the 
only  way  he  could  be  harmonized  was  to  be  bought  out.  Mr. 
Carnegie  was  perfectly  willing  to  be  bought  out  at  his  own  valua¬ 
tion  of  his  property  and  has  apparently  convinced  Mr.  Morgan 
that  the  valuation  is  not  excessive.  ” 

I  think  I  am  entirely  safe  in  predicting  that  Mr. 
Cassatt,  Mr.  Morgan,  and,  later  on,  every  stock¬ 
holder  in  the  Steel  Trust,  will  join  me  in  saying 
that  Carnegie  *s  4 4  literature  ’  ’  upon  the  tariff  and  the 
Trust  question,  is  precisely  what  has  made  Amer¬ 
ica  rich  in  fighting— and  winning— free  traders! 
We  are  now  so  bountifully  supplied  with  Skibo 
Castle  4  4  literature,  ’  ’  and  Carnegie  has  made  such 
a  spectacle  of  himself  as  an  advocate  of  Protec¬ 
tion  and  a  beneficiary  of  the  Trusts,  that  I  know 
every  man  of  our  faith  feels  that  he  would  like  to 
blazon  Free  Trade  on  a  banner  and  go  forth  giv¬ 
ing  battle  in  the  open  to  the  scheming  beneficiar¬ 
ies  of  Protection.  But  go  slowly,  my  brethren. 
I  am  too  earnest,  too  honest,  and  too  fearless  a 
free  trader— far  too  sure  of  an  early  victory  for 
absolute  free  trade,  to  share  any  responsibility 
for  so  radical  a  policy  at  present. 

‘ ‘What  wound  did  ever  heal  but  by  degrees  ?” 

“Let’s  teach  ourselves  that  honorable  stop, 

Not  to  outsport  discretion.” 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


339 


There  are  thousands  of  us  who  see  the  light, 
who  know  the  right,  and  who  are  full  eager  to  fol¬ 
low  it.  But  as  against  our  thousands,  there  are 
mil] ions  of  voters  who  do  not  yet  see  the  light; 
who  have  grown  up  under  Protection;  and  who 
have  had  no  time  to  read  free  trade  literature  and 
no  opportunity  to  hear  free  trade  speeches.  Ev¬ 
ery  man  of  them  is  just  as  honest,  just  as  earnest, 
and  just  as  ready  to  do  battle  for  the  right  as  we 
dare  be.  In  their  interest,  and  in  our  own  inter¬ 
est,  we  must  never  hesitate,  as  individual  free 
traders ,  to  openly  avow  our  honest  convictions, 
and  to  teach  the  simple  truth  upon  every  possible 
occasion— for  “equivocation  will  undo  us.” 
But  we  are  now  talking  of  a  party  platform;  we 
are  now  considering  definite  legislation ;  and  we 
know  that  the  assent  of  millions  of  unconverted 
voters  is  necessary  to  the  success  of  our  party 
and  the  enactment  of  sorely  needed  tariff  reform 
legislation.  Once  more  let  us  bear  in  mind  the 
sage  advice  of  the  wisest  of  statesmen  and  the 
greatest  of  party  leaders : 

“I  have  never  conceived  that  having  been  in  public  life  re¬ 
quires  me  to  belie  my  sentiments,  or  even  to  conceal  them. 7  7 

A  government  held  together  by  the  bands  of  reason  only,  re¬ 
quires  much  compromise  of  opinion;  that  things  even  salutary 
should  not  be  crammed  down  the  throats  of  dissenting  brethren. 7  7 

—  Thomas  Jefferson. 

The  entering  wedge,  of  clean-cut  and  well-sea¬ 
soned  Old  Hickory,  driven  home  with  a  Lincoln 
maul,  should  be  a  demand  for  free  raw  materials ; 
duty-free  staples  that  enter  into  productive  in¬ 
dustry  ;  and  the  removal  of  every  needless  tariff 
tax  that  reaches  into  the  pockets  of  our  farmers 


340  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

and  workingmen !  That  is  enongh  to  begin  with. 
And  such  a  platform  will  win  so  many  voters,  and 
make  so  much  prosperity  for  the  whole  people; 
that  the  rest  will  follow,  step  by  step,  as  surely  as 
fate,  if  we  fight  true  to  Jefferson’s  logic  and  lead¬ 
ership. 

Furthermore,  if  we  confine  our  tariff  taxes  to 
4  ‘  foreign  luxuries  consumed  only  by  the  rich  and 
most  extravagant  class,”  that  will  afford  a  for¬ 
midable  array  of  1  i  protected  ’  ’  home  industries 
for  the  reassuring  consolation  of  life-long  believ¬ 
ers  in  Protection  who  are  too  old  and  “too  set  in 
their  ways’ ’  to  change  their  opinions  quickly. 
Besides,  those  tariff  taxes  will  furnish  needed 
revenue  wherewith  to  pay  the  bills  of  our  Billion 
and  a  Half  Congress— until  such  time  as  we  have 
opportunity  to  demonstrate  anew  what  Jefferson¬ 
ian  simplicity  and  economy  really  mean  in  the  ad¬ 
ministration  of  our  national  government. 

To  meet  the  deficiency  in  revenue  which  will  re¬ 
sult  from  the  removal  of  the  duties  indicated,  we 
must  have  a  graduated  Income  Tax.  This  is,  of 
course,  not  a  part  of  “Lord  Bector”  Carnegie’s 
program.  On  page  338  of  the  above  essay  he  tells 
us: 

“  There  would  be  no  income  tax.  I  know  of  no  statesman  or 
authority  who  does  not  denounce  an  income  tax  as  the  most  ob¬ 
jectionable  of  all  taxes.  Mr.  Gladstone  once  appealed  to  the 
country  upon  this  subject  alone,  denouncing  it  as  tending  to 
make  a  nation  of  liars.  While  it  is  in  theory  a  just  tax,  in  prac¬ 
tice  it  is  the  source  of  such  demoralization  as  renders  it  per¬ 
haps  the  most  pernicious  form  of  taxation  which  has  ever  been 
conceived  since  human  society  has  settled  into  peaceful  govern¬ 
ment.  Any  measure  is  justifiable  in  time  of  war,  but  the  only 
excuse  for  an  income  tax  is  imperative  necessity.  There  is  at 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


341  . 


present  no  such  necessity.  The  Government  revenues  must  soon 
produce  a  surplus  over  expenditures,  if  from  no  other  cause  than 
the  increase  of  population  and  wealth,  and  they  can  be  made  to 
do  so  now,  as  previously  pointed  out,  by  taxing  higher  only  the 
extravagances  of  the  few.  ” 

But  the  English  people  refused  to  take  Glad¬ 
stone’s  advice— as  we  shall  refuse  to  take  Car¬ 
negie’s.  For  full  forty  long  years  the  whole 
American  people— especially  our  farmers  and 
workingmen— have  been  carrying  the  heavy  bur¬ 
den  of  national  taxation.  Both  the  war  debt  and 
the  honorable  pension  roll  are  still  with  us.  The 
time  has  come  to  shift  the  burden.  Law,  equity, 
precedent,  and  simple  justice  demand  it.  We  can 
take  our  chances  with  making  ‘ 4  a  nation  of  liars.  ’  ’ 
And  we  shall  lessen  the  chances  by  confining  the 
tax  to  the  few  who  enjoy  large  incomes— especial¬ 
ly  the  very  few  who  draw  princely  and  regal  in¬ 
comes  from  the  millions  made  in  promoting 
Trusts,  and  the  multi-millions  made  through  the 
monopoly  of  franchises  granted  by  the  people  for 
railroads,  pipe  lines,  and  all  public  utilities. 

No  man  or  woman  whose  income  is  below  $2,000 
a  year  should  pay  one  penny  of  the  tax.  Between 
$2,000  and  $3,000  the  tax  should  be  very  light. 
Then  it  should  rise  in  geometrical  progression— 
safely  to  the  point  of  filling  the  gap  and  paying 
the  bills  of  our  Protection  and  Trust-Promoting 
Congress.  And  every  dollar  of  the  just  taxation 
so  collected,  should  be  applied  specifically,  by  let¬ 
ter  of  the  law,  to  the  payment  of  pensions  and  the 
steady  discharge  of  our  war  debt.  The  English 
income  tax  law  is  an  admirable  model,  and  other 


342 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


helpful  hints  can  be  drawn  from  Germany, 
France,  Belgium,  Russia,  and  other  Continental 
countries. 

“Another  means  of  silently  lessening  the  inequality  of  proper¬ 
ty  is  to  exempt  all  from  taxation  below  a  certain  point  and  to 
tax  the  higher  portions  of  property  in  geometrical  progression 
as  they  rise.  ’  ’  —  Thomas  J efferson. 

If  the  rich  attempt  to  evade  the  tax  through  ly¬ 
ing,  as  Carnegie  intimates,  we  shall  quickly  find 
a  way  to  deal  with  them.  Prison  bars  and  yellow 
journals  will  take  care  of  the  liars.  And  after  the 
American  people  have  squarely  declared  for  such 
a  tax,  by  a  majority  vote  at  the  ballot  box,  if  there 
be  profound  jurists  on  the  Supreme  bench,  or  any 
able  Wall  Street  lawyers,  who  undertake  to  defeat 
the  people’s  will,  I  fancy  that  a  people’s  Presi¬ 
dent  in  the  White  House  and  a  people’s  Congress 
at  the  Capitol  will  find  a  way  to  deal  with  them— 
in  strict  accordance  with  the  Constitution,  and 
without  the  slightest  disturbance  in  the  process  of 
collection. 

To  see  how  surely  such  a  platform  would  com¬ 
mend  itself  to  the  sound  judgment  of  our  people, 
and  to  see  how  invincible  it  would  be  at  the  ballot 
box— we  need  only  glance  back  at  the  history  of 
the  tariff  question  in  American  politics. 

We  squarely  repudiated  Protection  in  1800 
when  we  elected  Jefferson.  We  repudiated  it  in 
1828  when  we  elected  Andrew  Jackson  over  John 
Quincy  Adams.  We  repudiated  it  by  a  smashing 
majority  when  we  again  elected  Jackson  in  1832 
over  Henry  Clay,  the  Prince  Rupert  of  Protec¬ 
tion.  John  Tyler  immortalized  himself  in  the 
Presidential  office  by  his  courageous  vetoes  of 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


343 


Protection  measures.  Walker  is  a  name  which 
will  now  loom  large  in  history,  because  his  lead¬ 
ership  gave  us  the  inestimable  boon  of  “the  Free 
Trade  Tariff  of  1846.  ”  On  October  11, 1859,  Lin¬ 
coln  wrote:  “We  old  Whigs  have  been  entirely 
beaten  out  on  the  tariff  question.’ ’  In  1868,  no 
less  a  man  than  J  ohn  Sherman  wrote  this : 

“Every  advance  towards  a  free  exchange  of  commodities  is  an 
advance  in  civilization;  every  obstruction  to  a  free  exchange  is 
born  of  the  same  narrow,  despotic  spirit  which  planted  castles 
upon  the  Rhine  to  plunder  peaceful  commerce;  every  obstruction 
to  commerce  is  a  tax  upon  consumption;  every  facility  to  a  free 
exchange  cheapens  commodities,  increases  trade  and  population, 
and  promotes  civilization. 1  ’ 

In  1876  we  fairly  elected  Tilden  on  a  platform 
of  “tariff  for  revenue  only.”  In  1880  an  over¬ 
whelming  majority  of  the  American  people  voted 
for  Hancock,  Weaver  and  others,  as  against  Gar¬ 
field— who  was  elected  by  “blocks  of  five,”  which 
gave  him  a  plurality  vote  of  the  States.  In  1884 
we  elected  Cleveland  over  ‘  ‘  the  Plumed  Knight  ’  ’ 
of  the  Protection  hosts.  In  1888  Cleveland  polled 
98,017  votes  more  than  Harrison.  In  1890  we 
deluged  the  McKinley  bill  with  repudiation  in  the 
form  of  a  phenomenal  Democratic  majority  in 
Congress.  In  the  year  1892  William  McKinley 
made  this  public  admission: 

“If  we  had  the  power  to  do  away  with  it  (the  tariff)  alto¬ 
gether,  it  would  be  the  policy  of  Republicans  and  Democrats  alike. 
But  we  cannot  do  that,  for  so  long  as  we  have  a  government  we 
must  have  revenue.  ” 

In  1892  we  triumphantly  elected  Cleveland  on 
a  platform  of  tariff  reform  and  sound  money.  In 


344 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


1896,  and  again  in  1900,  Free  Silver  elected  Mc¬ 
Kinley.  And  in  the  last  speech  that  he  delivered, 
McKinley  himself  said  this : 

‘  *  Our  capacity  to  produce  has  developed  so  enormously  and  our 
products  have  so  multiplied  that  the  problem  of  more  markets 
requires  our  urgent  and  immediate  attention.  In  these  times  of 
marvellous  business  energy  and  gain,  we  ought  to  be  looking  to 
the  future — strengthening  the  weak  places  in  our  industrial  and 
commercial  systems,  that  we  may  be  ready  for  any  storm  or 
strain. 

“What  we  produce  beyond  our  domestic  consumption  must 
have  a  vent  abroad. 

“The  period  of  exclusiveness  is  past.  The  expansion  of  our 
trade  and  commerce  is  the  pressing  problem. 

“We  have  a  vast  and  intricate  business  built  up  through  years 
of  toil  and  struggle,  in  which  every  part  of  the  country  has  its 
stake,  and  which  will  not  permit  of  either  neglect  or  undue  sel¬ 
fishness. 

“No  narrow,  sordid  policy  will  subserve  it.” 

In  the  light  of  this  oft-repeated,  persistent,  in¬ 
sistent,  and  grimly  determined  repudiation  of 
Protection,  throughout  more  than  a  century  of 
time,  how  is  it  longer  possible  for  sane  men  to 
question  the  will  of  the  American  people  ? 

Now  let  us  look  at  Cleveland’s  record. 

Too  many  thinking  and  reading  Americans 
have  forgotten  what  was  written  in  that  famous 
Tariff  Reform  Message  of  1887.  I  think  we  all 
appreciate  the  priceless  public  service  Mr.  Cleve¬ 
land  rendered  us  in  the  repeal  of  the  Sherman  Sil¬ 
ver  Coinage  law.  I  am  sure  that  every  student  of 
American  history  rightly  estimates  the  incalcul¬ 
able  value  of  his  new  and  necessary  interpretation 
of  the  Constitution  in  1894 — which  gave  us  un¬ 
questionable  control  of  inter-state  commerce. 
And  I  know  that  already,  among  European 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS.  345 

statesmen  at  least,  the  Venezuelan  Message 
ranks  among  the  greatest  of  our  state  papers. 
Now  that  we  are  again  face  to  face  with  the  tariff 
issue ;  now  that  the  next  Presidential  contest  must 
be  f  ought-out  upon  that  issue ;  and  now  that  the 
Democratic  party  must  re-assert  its  time-honored 
principles,  or  again  face  certain  defeat — I  am 
sure  it  will  profit  us  to  here  recall  what  Mr. 
Cleveland  penned  from  the  White  House  in  1887, 
while  the  Irust  scheme  was  in  the  making: 

The  discontent  of  the  employed  is  due,  in  a  large  degree,  to 
the  grasping  and  heedless  exactions  of  employers.  ’  ’ 

Those  who  toil  for  daily  wages  are  beginning  to  understand 
that  capital,  though  sometimes  vaunting  its  importance  and 
clamoring  for  the  protection  and  favor  of  the  Government,  is  dull 
and  sluggish  until,  touched  by  the  magical  hand  of  labor,  it 
springs  into  activity.  And  the  laboring  man  is  thoughtfully  in¬ 
quiring  whether,  in  these  circumstances  and  considering  the  trib¬ 
ute  he  constantly  pays  into  the  public  treasury  as  he  supplies  his 
daily  wants,  he  receives  his  fair  share  of  advantage.  There  is 
also  a  suspicion  abroad  that  the  surplus  of  our  revenues  indicates 
abnormal  and  exceptional  business  profits,  which  under  the  sys¬ 
tem  which  produces  such  a  surplus,  increase,  without  correspond¬ 
ing  benefit  to  the  people  at  large,  the  vast  accumulations  of  a 
few  among  our  citizens,  whose  fortunes,  rivaling  the  wealth  of 
the  most  favored  in  anti-democratic  nations,  are  not  the  natural 
growth  of  a  steady,  plain,  and  industrious  republic. f  ’ 

“Our  cities  are  the  abiding  places  of  wealth  and  luxury;  our 
manufactories  yield  fortunes  never  dreamed  of  by  the  fathers  of 
the  republic;  our  business  men  are  madly  striving  in  the  race  for 
riches,  and  the  immense  aggregations  of  capital  outrun  the  imag¬ 
ination  in  the  magnitude  of  their  undertakings.  Upon  a  more 
careful  inspection  we  find  the  wealth  and  luxury  of  our  cities 
mingled  with  poverty  and  wretchedness  and  unremunerative  toil. 
We  discover  that  the  fortunes  realized  by  our  manufacturers  are 
no  longer  solely  the  reward  of  sturdy  industry  and  enlightened 
foresight,  but  that  they  result  from  the  discriminating  favor  of 
the  Government,  and  are  largely  built  upon  undue  exactions  from 


346 


JEFFEESON  [AN  DEMOCEACY. 


the  masses  of  our  people.  The  gulf  between  employers  and  em¬ 
ployed  is  constantly  widening,  and  classes  are  rapidly  forming, 
one  comprising  the  very  rich  and  powerful,  while  in  another  are 
found  the  toiling  poor.  As  we  view  the  achievements  of  aggre¬ 
gated  capital  we  discover  the  existence  of  Trusts,  combinations, 
and  monopolies,  while  the  citizen  is  struggling  far  In  the  rear,  or 
is  trampled  to  death  under  an  iron  heel. ,  ’ 

Again,  in  his  speech  at  Tremont  Temple,  Bos¬ 
ton,  in  October,  1891,  he  said  this : 

“Our  consumers,  those  of  moderate  means  and  the  poor  of  the 
land,  are  too  much  neglected  in  our  national  policy;  their  life  is 
made  too  hard  for  them,  and  too  much  favor  is  shown  to  pam¬ 
pered  manufacturers  and  rich  monopolies.  ’ ’ 

In  1892,  after  he  had  been  re-nominated  upon  a 
platform  of  Sound  Money  and  Tariff  Reform; 
and  after  the  American  people  had  been  out¬ 
raged  by  the  Homestead  strike— which  Carnegie 
planned,  permitted,  and  ran  away  from— then  it 
was  that  Mr.  Cleveland  said  what  follows,  at 
Madison  Square  Garden,  July  20,  1892 : 

{ 1  Our  working  men  are  still  told  the  tale,  oft  repeated  in  spite 
of  its  demonstrated  falsity,  that  the  existing  Protective  tariff  is 
a  boon  to  them,  and  that  under  its  beneficent  operation  their 
wages  must  increase;  while,  as  they  listen,  scenes  are  enacted  in 
the  very  abiding  place  of  high  Protection  that  mock  the  hopes  of 
toil  and  attest  the  tender  mercy  the  workingman  receives  from 
those  made  selfish  and  sordid  hy  unjust  governmental  fav¬ 
oritism.  ’  ’ 

Then  during  our  last  Congressional  campaign, 
in  a  notable  speech  delivered  at  Morristown,  New 
Jersey,  in  October,  1902,  Mr.  Cleveland  said  this: 

“Never  within  my  observation  or  experience  has  there  been  a 
time  when  tariff  reform  should  he  more  earnestly,  persistently, 
and  honestly  pressed  than  now. 

“A  tariff  for  protection  as  its  chief  object  is  at  all  times  and 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


347 


in  every  feature  of  it  an  unjust  and  unfair  burden  upon  the 
masses  of  our  people;  the  bold  and  arrogant  developments  of  its 
unfairness  and  injustice,  and  the  new  directions  they  have  taken, 
ought  to  specially  arrest  the  attention  and  apprehension  of 
every  citizen. 

The  advance  growth  of  the  arrogance  and  greediness  of  tar¬ 
iff  beneficiaries,  and  the  kindness  shown  to  them  by  the  friends 
of  the  tariff,  demonstrate  how  confidently  they  rely  upon  the 
continuance  of  the  peopled  credulity. 

1  ‘  A  high  tariff  protects  the  Trusts  from  foreign  competition, 
and  by  agreed  association  and  confederacy  in  production  and 
price  they  defend  themselves  against  competition  at  home.  Is  it 
not  true  that  to  all  other  reasons  for  a  reform  in  our  tariff  laws 
there  is  added  the  birth  and  growth  of  their  cruel  and  unmerci¬ 
ful  progeny  of  Trusts?” 

I  have  no  personal  acquaintance  with  Grover 
Cleveland,  and  absolutely  no  personal  design  in 
connection  with  him.  I  judge  the  man  precisely 
as  thousands  of  other  well-informed  Americans 
who  do  not  know  him  must  now  judge  him.  But  I 
have  watched  his  public  career  closely;  I  have 
studied  his  writings  critically;  and  I  have  satis¬ 
fied  myself  that  the  secret  of  his  popularity,  and 
the  explanation  of  his  success,  are  to  be  found  in 
the  soundness  and  courage  of  his  convictions.  In 
early  life  lie  seems  to  have  formed  Democratic 
convictions;  later  in  life  he  evidently  confirmed 
those  convictions  by  study  of  American  history; 
and  wherever  called  to  public  service,  he  has  had 
the  manly  courage  to  think,  to  act,  and  to  bravely 
write,  in  the  interest  of  the  whole  people,  as  op¬ 
posed  to  the  interest  of  any  special  class. 

His  would-be  rivals  now  boldly  charge  him 
with  designs  for  another  candidacy,  and  the  evi¬ 
dence  is  ample  that  many  thousands  of  disinter¬ 
ested  Americans  would  gladly  welcome  an  oppor- 


348 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


tunity  to  once  more  entrust  the  sceptre  of  power 
to  his  well-tried  judgment  and  oft-tried  loyalty 
to  democratic  principles  of  government.  What 
his  intentions  may  be,  I  have  no  means  of  know¬ 
ing.  But  I  would  he  faithless  to  the  duty  which 
every  citizen  owes  to  a  courageous  public  official 
if  I  omitted  from  these  pages  a  record  of  the 
splendid  public  services  he  has  rendered ;  and  be¬ 
yond  that,  I  would  be  faithless  to  my  creed  as  a 
Jeffersonian  Democrat  if  I  did  not  point-out  what 
he  has  written  and  done — within  the  recollection 
of  every  man  who  lives  and  thinks — to  prove  the 
power  and  influence  of  sound  Democratic  teach¬ 
ing. 

Grover  Cleveland  has  won  his  offices  and  his 
honors  solely  because  he  rings  true  to  the  Ameri¬ 
can  system  of  representative  government  by  ma¬ 
jority  vote  of  fighting  freemen— solely  because 
he  proved  himself  faithful  to  “government  of  the 
people  by  the  people  and  for  the  people/  ’  as  op¬ 
posed  to  the  system  which  taxes  the  many  to  en¬ 
rich  the  few.  Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison, 
Monroe,  Jackson,  Tyler,  Lincoln,  and  Tilden— 
every  man  of  them  won  enduring  honor  for  iden¬ 
tically  the  same  reason !  The  record  these  great 
men  left  us  is  the  common  heritage  of  all  our  peo¬ 
ple.  Every  fighter  who  feels  power  within  him¬ 
self,  needs  but  turn  to  the  printed  pages  telling 
what  these  men  thought— and  did— to  find  sure 
direction  for  effective  work  in  advancing  the 
science  of  government.  Each  and  all  of  them  bet¬ 
tered  the  conditions  of  the  generations  living  in 
their  time — not  only  in  America,  but  throughout 
all  Europe  as  well ;  for  every  advance  in  the  gov- 


THE  TARIFF  AND  TRUSTS. 


349 


ernmental  systems  of  Europe  since  the  hour  of 
our  Declaration  of  Independence,  can  be  traced 
straight  back  to  the  thought  and  work  of  the  truly 
great  men  I  have  named.  Grover  Cleveland 
knows  this  to  be  true ;  and  because  he  knows  it — 
because  his  forefathers  bred  into  him  the  courage 
to  stand  for  what  he  knows  to  be  right — he  now 
occupies  a  position  of  great  influence  and  great 
responsibility.  What  his  ambition  and  plans  are, 
is  with  me  a  mere  matter  of  conjecture.  But 
whatever  they  may  be,  life’s  lessons  long  ago 
taught  me  that  no  individual  man — living,  or  ever 
yet  to  live — can  change  the  course  which  our 
fighting  fathers  have  marked  out,  and  ivhich  we 
now  mean  to  follow .  The  one  and  only  thing 
needful  is,  that  patriotic  Americans,  with  power 
to  think  and  do,  shall  now  make  a  serious  and  de¬ 
termined  business,  first,  of  writing  a  clearly- 
worded  and  concise  platform  setting  forth  our  in¬ 
tentions;  and  then  nominating  on  that  platform 
two  candidates  ivho  can  be  trusted  to  faithfully 
enact,  into  statute  law,  the  known  will  of  the 
American  people  upon  the  subject  of  Tariff  Re¬ 
form. 

And  in  doing  this  needful  work,  let  us  have 
done  with  tricksters,  trimmers,  and  little  men 
who  take  counsel  of  their  fears .  Our  Revolution¬ 
ary  fathers  proved  the  mettle  of  which  they  were 
made  by  declaring,  and  winning,  rebellion  against 
unjust  taxation.  Fifty  years  later,  Andrew  Jack- 
son,  the  BORN  fighter— the  President  who  taught 
us  how  to  preserve  Union  without  senseless  re¬ 
sort  to  warfare  among  ourselves— the  freeman 
who  personified  the  genius  of  our  race  and  our  in- 


350  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

stitutions  the  patriot  wlio  never  desired  or  con¬ 
sidered  any  other  thought  than  to  advance  the 
happiness  of  his  kindred  and  his  kind— the  soldier 
who  lived  to  write,  in  deeds  of  valor  and  in  words 
of  dauntless  conviction,  one  of  the  proudest  pages 
in  all  human  history— it  was  Andrew  Jackson 

who  penned  the  Farewell  Message  which  I  quote 
below : 

“The  corporations  and  wealthy  individuals  who  are  en¬ 
gaged  IN  LARGE  MANUFACTURING  ESTABLISHMENTS,  DESIRE  A  HIGH 
TARIFF  TO  INCREASE  THEIR  GAINS.  DESIGNING  POLITICIANS  WILL 
SUPPORT  IT  TO  CONCILIATE  THEIR  FAVOR  AND  TO  OBTAIN  THE 
MEANS  FOR  PROFUSE  EXPENDITURE  FOR  THE  PURPOSE  OF  PUR¬ 
CHASING  INFLUENCE  IN  OTHER  QUARTERS.  Do  NOT  ALLOW  YOUR¬ 
SELVES,  MY  FELLOW  CITIZENS,  TO  BE  MISLED  IN  THIS  SUBJECT. 

It  is  a  system  of  injustice,  and  if  persisted  in  will  lead 

TO  CORRUPTION  AND  MUST  END  IN  RUIN.  ” 


Andrew  Jackson. 


THE  REGULATION  OF  INTER-STATE 

COMMERCE. 


Industrial  enterprises  whose  only  industry  is  in  running 
printing  presses  to  print  shares  of  stock.  ' 1 

— James  J.  Hill. 

‘  ‘  No  service  which  the  Government  undertakes  can  be  more  use¬ 
ful,  and  no  duty  which  rests  upon  it  is  more  imperative,  than  to 
secure  for  the  public,  always,  and  everywhere,  equal  treatment 
by  every  railway  carrier.  *’ 

— Martin  A.  Knapp ,  Chairman. 

‘‘The  facts  developed  upon  that  investigation  [of  the  Chicago 
packing  houses],  and  upon  a  previous  investigation  into  the  move¬ 
ment  of  grain  and  grain  products,  are  of  such  a  character  that  no 
thoughtful  person  can  contemplate  them  with  indifference.  That 
the  leading  traffic  officials  of  many  of  the  principal  railway  lines, 
men  occupying  high  positions  and  charged  with  the  most  import¬ 
ant  duties,  shoud  deliberately  violate  the  statute  law  of  the  land, 
and  agree  with  each  other  to  do  so ;  that  it  should  be  thought  by 
them  necessary  to  destroy  vouchers  and  to  so  manipulate  book¬ 
keeping  as  to  obliterate  evidence  of  the  transactions;  that  hun¬ 
dreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  should  be  paid  in  unlawful  rebates 
to  a  few  great  packing  houses;  that  the  business  of  railroad 
transportation,  the  most  important  but  one  in  the  country  to-day, 
paying  the  highest  salaries  and  holding  out  to  young  men  the 
greatest  inducements,  should  to  such  an  extent  be  conducted  in 
open  disregard  of  law,  must  be  surprising  and  offensive  to  all 
right-minded  persons.  ’  } 

—  The  Inter-State  Commerce  Commission. 


Chapter  X. 

“Finance  is  a  mere  matter  of  politics,”  was  a 
favorite  observation  with  Disraeli.  And  just  as 
Disraeli,  Salisbury,  Bismarck,  and  all  the  prac¬ 
tical  statesmen  of  aristocratic  Europe  long  ago 
learned  to  act  upon  this  precept  of  modern 

351 


352  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

finance;  so  our  Wall  Street  operators  have  long 
been  busy  with  the  work  of  political  organization. 
Vanderbilt  and  Scott  began  it  very  early;  Gould 
soon  followed,  with  reckless  daring;  Huntington 
and  the  Pacific  Railroad  crowd  pooled  issues  with 
the  East  far  back  in  the  sixties ;  in  the  early  seven¬ 
ties  Rockefeller  began  his  shrewd  work  through 
Payne  in  Ohio,  Quay  in  Pennsylvania,  and  Cam¬ 
den  in  West  Virginia  ;  and  the  Sugar  Trust  was 
no  sooner  organized  than  the  Havemeyers  became 
a  potent  influence  in  Washington.  And  since  the 
Hinglev  bill  made  possible  our  modern  era  of 
wonder-working  “industrial  combinations, ’ ’  we 
know  the  artful  solicitude  with  which  the  people 
are  taught  that  “the  question  of  tariff  reform  is 
separate  and  apart  from  the  question  of  regulat¬ 
ing  the  Trusts”— as  Roosevelt  words  it. 

Obviously,  Wall  Street  is  now  the  center  and 
source  of  all  the  problems  that  perplex  us.  And, 
in  reality,  the  Wall  Street  problem  is  so  simple, 
so  transparent  in  methods  and  motives,  that  we 
need  only  state  the  known  facts  in  plain  type  to 
understand  it  clearly;  and,  understanding  it,  we 
need  only  apply  remedies  which  are  so  long-tried 
and  so  familiar  that  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  their 
efficacy.  In  other  words,  if  the  genius  and  man¬ 
hood  of  America  will,  in  the  next  few  years,  de¬ 
vote  one-tenth  as  much  time  and  purposeful  en¬ 
ergy  to  politics  as  they  habitually  devote  to  busi¬ 
ness,  within  a  decade  we  can  lay  the  secure  foun¬ 
dations  for  a  future  the  blessings  of  which  no 
imagination  can  measure.  And  I  know  that  we 
shall  do  it ! 

Now,  let  us  face  the  facts  of  recent  record. 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  353 

I  say  let  ns  face  the  facts ,  because  the  time  has 
gone  by  for  any  further  reasoning  or  debate 
about  what  is  needed  to  solve  all  our  problems  in 
railroad  and  corporation  finance.  What  we  need, 
and  just  about  all  we  need,  is  Publicity — of  pre¬ 
cisely  the  kind  that  has  solved  our  banking  prob¬ 
lem.  And  this  I  think  can  be  made  perfectly  evi¬ 
dent  through  a  few  pertinent  quotations  with 
running  comment. 

Mr.  James  B.  Dill,  of  New  York  and  New  Jer- 
sey,  is  the  author  of  the  famous  law  which  has 
made  New  Jersey  the  home  of  the  Trusts.  He  is 
likewise  the  accomplished  lawyer  who  patched  up 
the  peace  between  Frick  and  Carnegie,  at  the  time 
the  fearless  American  forced  the  wily  little 
Scot  to  surrender  what  was  justly  due  for  steady, 
earnest,  and  able  work  in  putting  The  Carnegie 
Company  at  the  post  of  vantage  for  the  Trust 
harvest.  Mr.  Dill  is  a  graduate  of  Williams  Col¬ 
lege,  and  at  the  commencement  exercises  of  his 
alma  mater  in  June,  1899,  he  had  this  to  say  con¬ 
cerning  the  motives  and  methods  of  our  modern 
Wall  Street  promoters  and  financiers  of  Trusts: 

“The  labor  of  the  professional  promoter  in  this  matter  was 
not  one  of  love.  He  was  not  actuated  by  methods  of  mere  philan¬ 
thropy;  his  purpose  was  to  make  for  himself  a  profit  out  of  the 
combination.  This  was  generally  done  by  making  the  stock  issue 
of  the  company  of  sufficient  size  to  enable  the  promoter  to  get 
some  of  this  stock.  The  manufacturer  was  inclined  to  be  gen¬ 
erous  with  that  which  apparently  cost  him  nothing.  *  *  *  * 

The  promoter  was  not  working  upon  the  corporate  problem  to 
demonstrate  an  economic  proposition  from  the  standpoint  of 
economics.  He  was  seeking  his  reward,  which  was  a  block  of 
stock.  *  *  *  *  His  stock  sought  a  market,  and  this  brought 


354 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


the  promoter  into  contact  with  the  men  who  marketed  the  stock. 

‘  ‘We  have  now  the  origin  of  the  financier. 

“The  financier  saw  that  the  promoter  obtained  his  stock  for 
his  services,  and  that  the  stock  was  created  for  the  purpose  of 
paying  for  the  services.  *  *  #  *  At  this  point  another  ele¬ 

ment  arose  which  tended  to  increase  the  issue  of  watered  stock. 

“Instead  of  $500,000  propositions,  propositions  involving  mil¬ 
lions  were  sought  for,  in  order  that  the  promoter ’s  and  financier  *s 
reward  might  be  in  the  millions  rather  than  in  the  unit  quantities, 
and  perhaps  with  a  view  to  make  the  ascertainment  of  the  exact 
amount  paid  for  promotion  more  difficult. 

‘  ‘  There  followed  a  tendency  to  surrender  industrial  principles, 
and  to  follow  the  promoter  and  the  financier  along  promotion 
lines  rather  than  along  truly  manufacturing,  mercantile  or  in¬ 
dustrial  lines.  What  was  the  result1?  The  answer  is  plain. 

“Combinations  began  to  be  put  together  for  speculative  pur¬ 
poses,  or,  put  it  another  way,  the  Wall  Street  end  came  promi¬ 
nently  forward  into  the  business  of  combinations.  For  the  Wall 
Street  purpose,  it  was  necessary  that  the  combinations  should 
be  of  immense  size  and  apparently  involving  whole  trades. 
Neither  the  promoter  nor  the  financier  was  able  to  dispose  of  it 
all,  and  therefore  a  market  had  to  be  created  for  it. 

*  ‘  This  tended  to  create  the  so-called  pirates  among  industrial 
combinations,  sometimes  designated  as  ‘gambling  specialties/  a 
class  of  corporations  organized  as  industrials  upon  apparently 
economic  principles,  but  really  and  truly  for  the  purpose  of  Wall 
Street  speculations,  and  speculations  only. 

“In  such  companies  the  director  or  trustee  had  largely  disap¬ 
peared  so  far  as  his  duties  as  an  impartial  trustee  for  the  stock¬ 
holder,  the  wage  earner,  or  indeed,  the  industry  or  business  itself, 
was  concerned.  The  tendency  was  that  of  a  mad  race  to  quick 
wealth;  sometimes  proceeding  upon  the  principle  that  the  end 
justified  the  means,  forgetting  that  industrial  enterprises  could 
not  be  conducted  on  purely  speculative  or  gambling  methods. 

“At  this  point,  let  it  be  clearly  understood  that  by  no  means 
all  combinations  were  improperly  promoted,  viciously  financed, 
but  be  it  confessed  that  some  were. 

“As  to  the  future  of  those  corporations  which  are  overloaded 
with  stock  issues,  whose  valuations  have  been  fictitious,  whose 
aims  have  been  speculative,  we  note  that  the  organization  of  these 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  355 

companies,  while  ostensibly  upon  economic  lines,  has  been  really 
for  the  purpose  of  stock  speculation.  But  the  opportunity  for 
this  speculation  is  daily  growing  less  and  less;  the  investing 
public  are  becoming  aware  of  securities  of  organizations  which 
are  over  capitalized;  the  American  public  are  buying  with  more 
care,  are  making  more  inquiries,  are  becoming  more  inquisitive 
as  to  what  is  behind  the  stock  issue,  and  with  the  result  that 
the  market  is  lost  to  industrials  which  are  in  the  nature  of 
gambling  speculations.  The  result  will  be  that  by  a  process  more 
or  less  painful  to  the  over-capitalized  institutions,  reorganization 
will  take  place,  and  such  combinations  will  be  put  upon  a  truly 
industrial  footing,  or  go  to  the  wall. 

One  thing  certainly  is  now  in  the  minds  of  the  corporations 
of  integrity;  viz.,  to  show  plainly  to  the  public  what  is  back  of 
the  entire  issue  of  stock,  common  and  preferred.  The  public 
must  have  knowledge  in  order  to  buy  and  invest.  The  corpora¬ 
tions  must  make  knowledge  public  in  order  that  they  may  not 
all  go  to  destruction,  and  that  the  bad  may  stand  out  from  and 
be  distinguished  as  against  the  good. 

*‘The  so-called  pirates  in  combinations  have  been  the  greatest 
injury  to  honest  corporations  of  any  of  the  elements  existing  to¬ 
day.  For  their  own  preservation  corporations  of  integrity  are 
urging  a  separation  between  the  good  and  the  bad.  This  is  because 
the  honest  corporations  know  that  they  can  stand  that  degree  of 
publicity,  while  the  inflated  organization,  the  false  industrial,  will 
not  dare  make  the  same  showing.  The  same  need  which  called 
for  the  enactment  of  the  national  bank  law  (requiring  official 
examination  and  periodical  public  statements)  will  no  doubt 
eventually  call  for  a  national  control  of,  and  a  national  corpora¬ 
tion  law  for,  corporations  which  are  truly  national  in  their  extent. 
This  is  but  in  a  legal  way  carrying  to  its  logical  conclusion  the 
principle  which  caused  the  organization  of  the  combination, 
namely,  1  centralization  of  control. 1  Applying  this  same  prin¬ 
ciple  of  centralization  of  control  to  the  law  governing  the  cor¬ 
porations  results  in  a  national  corporation  law.  ’  ’ 

Mr.  Dill ’s  expert  and  timely  emphasis  of  the 
growing  need,  in  defense  of  both  stockholders  and 
managers,  for  greater  publicity  in  company  af¬ 
fairs,  is  but  an  echo  of  the  eloquent,  forceful,  and 


356 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


oft-repeated  warnings  upon  the  same  subject 
from  the  late  Lord  Chief  Justice  Russell,  of 
Great  Britain.  Following  the  Hooley  disclosures, 
it  will  be  recalled  that  in  his  memorable  address 
at  Manchester,  he  said : 

*  1  That  law  (Companies  Act)  has  effected  much  good,  but  it 
has  been,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  in  many  cases  prostituted  by  the 
greed  of  unscrupulous  persons  in  the  hurry  to  obtain  great  wealth 
without  being  willing  to  put  forth  for  its  acquirement  honest  toil 
and  honest  endeavor  *  *  *  *  The  problem,  which  is  not  yet 

solved  by  existing  legislation,  is  to  reconcile  the  useful  operation 
of  that  act  with  such  machinery  as,  if  it  cannot  wholly  prevent, 
will  minimize  evils  of  the  nature  and  character  to  which  I  have 
referred. 

“The  first  object  ought  to  be  to  ensure,  so  far  as  practicable, 
that  the  public  should  be  afforded  all  such  information  as  would 
affect  the  reasonable  judgment  of  a  man  in  determining  whether 
he  would  or  would  not  invest  in  a  particular  concern;  and  the 
next  object  ought  to  be  that  all  holding  fiduciary  or  quasi¬ 
fiduciary  positions  should  be  bound  to  disclose  fully  and  clearly 
any  interest  'which  they  possess  differing  from  the  interests 
of  the  other  shareholders — in  other  words,  that  the  transactions 
should  be  open  and  above  board,  and  all  the  parties  dealing  on 
equal  terms. 

“I  have  heard  it  said  that  it  is  impossible  to  make  the  law 
more  stringent,  because  it  will  frighten  away  from  the  direction 
of  public  companies  honorable  and  honest  men.  I  do  not  say 
that  that  consideration  is  to  be  disregarded— far  from  it.  But 
I  do  not  believe  that  any  honorable  and  honest  man,  who  desires 
according  to  his  conscience  to  discharge  the  trust  that  is  imposed 
on  him,  would  suffer  by  any  greater  stringency  of  the  law  to 
give  effect  to  the  two  objects  to  which  I  have  referred.  I  said  a 
few  minutes  ago  that  great  pecuniary  losses  had  followed 
these  nefarious  practices.  The  official  receiver  charged  with 
winding  up  of  public  companies,  who  has  rendered  and  is  render- 
ing  the  most  valuable  public  service,  has  at  my  request  furnished 
to  me  some  figures  on  this  head.  They  are  startling.  He  gives 
me  the  figures  for  a  period  of  seven  years— from  1891  and  up  to 
and  including  1897 — and  on  the  official  information  at  his  com- 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTEB-STATE  COMMERCE.  357 

mand,  and  taking  the  advice  of  those  in  a  position  to  check  the 
estimate  (for  in  part  it  must  necessarily  be  an  estimate),  he 
comes  to  the  conclusion  that  in  that  period  of  seven  years  there 
has  been  lost  to  the  community,  and  gone  into  unworthy  pockets 
no  less  a  sum  than  £28,159,482,  made  up  of  losses  of  creditors 
dealing  with  companies  £7,696,848,  and  of  loss  to  the  wretched 
contributors  or  shareholders  £20,462,634.  And  when  you  recollect 
that  these  are  the  figures  relating  only  to  companies  wound  up 
compulsorily,  and  that  they  exclude  cases  of  reduced  capital,  the 
losses  in  relation  to  companies  whose  shares  were  taken  by  the 
public  at  par,  but  whose  present  value  only  represents  a  very 
few  shillings  or  pence  in  the  pound  of  their  par  value,  you  will 
see  that  the  loss  to  the  public  is  enormous.  But  in  addition  to 
that  is  what  1  think  is  a  weightier  consideration— the  effect  of 
such  transactions,  if  allowed  to  go  on  almost  with  impunity,  on 
the  public  mind  and  confidence.  These  are  pressing  considera¬ 
tions,  which  show  that  these  matters  should  be  dealt  with  as  of 
urgent  importance. 1 1 

Then  again,  some  months  thereafter,  at  the  in¬ 
auguration  of  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  Chief 

Justice  Russell  again  took  occasion  to  sav: 

•/ 

“The  Legislature  has  recognized  the  need  of  measures  aimed 
m  this  direction,  for  in  several  sessions  of  Parliament,  commit¬ 
tees  of  the  House  of  Lords  have  been  endeavoring  to  solve  in 
this  relation  the  problem  of  how  to  prevent,  or  at  least  to  nar¬ 
row,  the  area  of  fraud,  while  at  the  same  time  not  interfering 
with  the  useful  efficiency  and  operation  of  the  acts  dealing  with 
limited  liability  companies.  The  aim  of  any  such  legislation  is 
clear  and  is  simple.  It  is  to  enforce  the  rules  of  common  hon¬ 
esty  in  the  promotion  of  companies.  When  appeals  are  made  to 
the  public  to  subscribe  to  the  capital  of  undertakings,  it  ought 
to  be  obligatory  to  disclose  every  fact  known  to  the  promoters 
and  unknown  to  the  public  which  might  affect  the  mind  of  a 
reasonable  person  in  determining  whether  he  will  or  will  not 
subscribe  to  the  purpose  of  the  undertaking.  Everything  ought  to 
be  above  board;  no  concealment;  no  secret  profits— the  parties, 
public,  and  promoters  alike  ought  to  deal  with  equal  information 
as  regards  the  carrying  on  of  such  companies.  The  directors  ought 
to  be  men  of  independence,  not  the  creatures  of  promoters,  paid 


358 


JEFFEKSONIAN  DEMOCEACY. 


by  promoters,  qualified  by  promoters,  but  men  bringing  reason¬ 
able  skill  and  knowledge  to  the  matters  they  undertake,  and,  even 
more  important,  independence  of  mind  and  perfect  honesty  to 
their  task.  My  Lord  Mayor,  in  saying  this,  I  am  not  uttering 
any  counsels  of  perfection.  I  am  saying  what  the  commonest 
dictates  of  honesty— common  honesty— suggest.  I  hope  that 
Parliament  will  feel  itself  competent  at  an  early  date  to  deal  ade¬ 
quately  and  efficiently  with  this  subject. }  1 

Mr.  Dill  and  Lord  Russell  teach  the  same  lesson 
which  Salmon  P.  Chase,  with  painful  difficulty, 
taught  American  bankers  long  ago,  namely :  that 
in  order  to  prosper  themselves,  they  must  deal 
openly,  and  therefore  honestly,  with  their  stock¬ 
holders,  their  depositors,  and  the  public  at  large. 

Mr.  Chauncey  M.  Depew  has  also  learned  that 
same  lesson— for  no  man  can  live  so  long  and  talk 
so  much  as  the  voluble  Depew  without  sometimes 
stumbling  upon  the  solid  truth.  This  is  what  he 
said  at  the  banquet  assembled  to  celebrate  his 
election  (I  beg  pardon,  his  appointment)  to  the 
United  States  Senate: 

“I  believe  that  every  company  which  owes  its  existence  to  a 
charter  from  the  State  or  the  National  Government  should  be 
subject  to  the  most  rigid  scrutiny  and  supervision  by  the  State  or 
National  Government. 

“I  believe  that  the  Interstate  Commission  should  be  strength¬ 
ened  in  its  power,  its  discretion  and  its  judicial  dignity. 

One  of  the  elements  which  is  rapidly  solving  the  railway  prob¬ 
lem  is  that  no  interest,  or  combination  of  interests,  any  longer 
control  a  majority  of  the  stock  of  our  great  railway  corporations, 
but  that  the  stock  is  distributed  so  widely  that  it  is  held  by  in¬ 
dividuals,  mostly  of  limited  means,  estates,  institutions  which 
hold  the  savings  of  working  men  and  working  women,  and  the 
reserve  for  the  protection  of  their  policies  of  life  insurance. 

“Thus  the  voting  control  of  these  great  corporations,  more 
than  three-fourths  of  it,  is  in  the  hands  of  the  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  the  small  investors  of  the  country. 


PUBLICITY  AND  IN  TEE-STATE  COMMEECE.  359 

“New  York  is  now  the  second  city  in  the  world  in  population, 
and  the  first  in  the  magnitude  of  its  manufacturing  interests 
and  its  commercial  and  financial  transactions. 1  ’ 

1 1 1  believe  from  the  pivotal  position  of  our  city  and  State  that 
what  benefits  New  York  helps  the  whole  country.  The  restric¬ 
tions  placed  upon  commerce  at  this  port  should  be  removed,  and 
this  should  be  made  as  far  as  possible  a  free  port.  ” 

One  of  these  days  we  shall  have  a  statesman  in 
Mr.  Depew ’s  seat  in  the  Senate  who  will  talk  less, 
and  make  a  business  of  doing  at  least  something 
toward  giving  us  “the  most  rigid  scrutiny  and 
supervision”  of  corporation  finance.  And  if 
something  is  not  soon  done  toward  removing 
“the  restrictions  placed  upon  commerce  at  this 
port,”  instead  of  forever  talking,  Mr.  Depew’s 
successor  will  probably  arrange  for  a  dozen  or 
more  special  trains  to  transport  all  the  members 
of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  the  Board  of  Trade 
and  Transportation,  the  Produce  Exchange,  and 
like  bodies,  down  to  Washington  that  they  may  let 
Congress  know,  very  definitely,  just  what  the 
brains,  the  wealth,  the  business  interests,  and  the 
patriotism  of  New  York  now  demand. 

Mr.  John  D.  Rockefeller  is  as  close-mouthed  as 
a  sphinx.  Not  since  the  Trust  issue  began  to  take 
definite  form  in  the  public  mind,  has  it  been  possi¬ 
ble  to  force  him  upon  the  witness  stand.  For 
Rockefeller  well  knows  that  the  magic  spell  of  his 
success  would  be  broken  if  he  ever  faced  the 
searching  cross-examination  of  an  American  free¬ 
man  who  is  a  trained  lawyer— a  free  man,  pulsing 
with  the  blood  of  his  liberty-loving  ancestors,  and 
doing  his  chosen  work  in  the  presence  of  a  watch- 


360  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

ful,  lynx-eyed,  and  fearless  group  of  American 
newspaper  reporters. 

“As  long  as  the  press  can  be  protected,  we 
trust  them  for  light.  ’  ’ 

—  Thomas  Jefferson. 

But  in  1899  the  Industrial  Commission  finally 
forced  Rockefeller  to  reply  in  writing,  under  oath, 
to  a  few  questions ;  and  we  have  already  seen  how 
he  then  confessed  that  “the  entire  oil  business  is 
dependent  upon  this  pipe-line  system” — for 
which  the  people  have  granted  the  franchises! 
Further  along  in  this  oath-bound  and  written  tes¬ 
timony,  Rockefeller  found  it  necessary  to  employ 
ordinary  common  sense,  and  so  he  said  this,  in 
defense  of  combinations: 

“Our  Federal  form  of  government,  making  every  corporation 
created  by  a  State  foreign  to  every  other  State,  renders  it  neces¬ 
sary  for  persons  doing  business  through  corporate  agency  to 
organize  corporations  in  some  or  many  of  the  different  States  in 
which  their  business  is  located.  Instead  of  doing  business 
through  the  agency  of  one  corporation,  they  must  do  business 
through  the  agencies  of  several  corporations.  If  the  business  is 
extended  to  foreign  countries— and  Americans  are  not  to-day 
satisfied  with  home  marlcets  alone— it  will  be  found  helpful  and 
possibly  necessary  to  organize  corporations  in  such  countries,  for 
Europeans  are  prejudiced  against  foreign  corporations,  as  are 
the  people  of  many  of  our  States.  These  different  corporations 
thus  become  co-operating  agencies  in  the  same  business,  and  are 
held  together  by  common  ownership  of  their  stocks. 

It  is  too  late  to  argue  about  advantages  of  industrial  com¬ 
binations.  They  are  a  necessity.  And  if  Americans  are  to  have 
the  privilege  of  extending  their  business  in  all  the  States  of  the 
Union,  and  into  foreign  countries  as  well,  they  are  a  necessity 
on  a  large  scale  and  require  the  agency  of  more  than  one  cor¬ 
poration. 

The  dangers  are  that  the  power  conferred  by  combinations 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  361 

may  be  abused,  that  combinations  may  be  formed  for  specula¬ 
tion  in  stocks  rather  than  for  conducting  business,  and  that  for 

this  purpose  prices  may  be  temporarily  raised  instead  of  being 
lowered.  ” 

*  ‘  I  ascribe  the  success  of  the  Standard  to  its  consistent  policy 
to  make  the  volume  of  its  business  large  through  the  merits  and 
cheapness  of  its  products.” 

In  the  light  of  a  recent  advance  of  four  cents 
per  gallon  in  the  cost  of  oil,  I  think  some  of  us 
will  be  disposed  to  “  ascribe  the  success  of  the 
Standard  ”  to  a  monopoly  of  pipe-line  fran¬ 
chises— granted  by  the  people— which  enables  the 
Standard  Oil  Company  to  charge  precisely  what 
they  please  for  petroleum  and  all  its  by-products. 
And  in  the  light  of  Mr.  Archbold’s  notorious  tele¬ 
gram  to  Senator  Matthew  Stanley  Quay,  I  think 
many  more  of  us  will  conclude  that  all  the  formi¬ 
dable  forces  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  may 
be  relied  upon  to  offer  sturdy  and  long-winded 
opposition  to  every  move  that  may  be  made  to 
assure  American  freemen,  as  well  as  investing 
stockholders,  the  same  reasonable,  prudent,  and 
necessary  publicity  as  to  combination  finance  that 
the  fighting  patriotism  of  Andrew  Jackson  and 
the  constructive  statesmanship  of  Salmon  P. 
Chase  finally  gave  us  for  banking  corporations. 

“The  Standard  Oil  Company,  unlike  most  of  the  other  great 
concerns,  is  violently  opposed  to  the  provisions  of  the  Depart¬ 
ment  of  Commerce  bill  relating  to  the  powers  of  the  new  Bureau 
of  Corporations.  Its  representatives  are  trying  to  attach  restric¬ 
tions  to  the  operations  of  the  bureau  which  will  save  the  Stand¬ 
ard  Oil  from  ever  having  to  disclose  the  essential  facts  of  its 
business  operations.  For  a  time  it  seemed  as  if  such  a  con¬ 
servative  Trust  programme  had  been  made  that  the  railroad 


362  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

and  other  corporations  would  consent  to  its  adoption,  as  an  inex¬ 
pensive  method  of  satisfying  the  public  demand,  but  recent 
developments  make  this  less  certain.  ” 

— New  York  Evening  Post. 

The  boom  in  4  4  industrials,  ’ ’  since  the  passage 
of  the  Dingley  bill,  has  carried  us  so  far  afield 
in  the  mystic  and  bedazzling  region  of  Wall 
Street  finance,  that  too  many  of  us  have  forgotten 
the  deeps  and  shallows,  the  splendors  and  the 
wrecks,  of  the  era  of  railroad  promotions.  I  have 
no  time  at  present  to  review  the  stirring  story  of 
those  early  days,  when  a  certain  celebrated  gen¬ 
tleman  was  4 4 casting  an  anchor  to  windward’ ’  to 
induce  the  national  government  and  the  investing 
public  to  provide  the  needful  cash— together  with 
great  land  grants  from  our  Public  Domain— for 
building  our  matchless  railroad  systems.  That 
was  a  harvest  season  during  which  early  promot¬ 
ers  piled  up  many  princely  fortunes ;  and  below  I 
present  a  4 4 human  document”  which  I  think  will 
be  enough  at  present  to  recall  the  past  to  prudent 
men— enough  also  to  give  us  sure  direction  for 
the  immediate  future.  . 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  was  one  of  the  earliest  of  our  enterprises  in 
substituting  the  railroad  for  the  stage  coach  and 
Conestoga  wagon.  John  W.  Garrett  was  the  prac¬ 
tical  genius  who  piloted  the  B.  &  O.  safely  to  the 
point  of  large  public  usefulness;  and  Garrett’s 
son  was  a  fearless  chip  of  the  old  block  who  gave 
his  life  to  an  honest  development  of  its  still-larger 
usefulness.  While  1  was  yet  a  boy,  back  in  the 
crucial  year  of  1877,  when  the  panic  of  1873  bore 
fruit  in  the  tragic  railroad  riots  at  Martinsburg 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  363 


and  Pittsburg,  the  man  who  preached  the  sound¬ 
est  railroad  logic  that  I  had  ever  read  or  heard, 
was  William  Keyser,  second  Vice-President  and 
active  Manager  at  that  time.  After  I  had  grown 
to  mature  manhood,  in  the  year  1894,  when  the 
B.  &  0.  went  into  the  hands  of  Receivers,  this  was 
the  message  I  read  from  that  same  William  Key¬ 
ser  : 

“When  the  writer  was  in  London  recently  Lord  Rothschild, 
the  head  of  one  of  the  greatest  banking  houses  of  that  city,  said 
to  him  that  there  were  two  things  in  connection  with  the  Amer¬ 
ican  railway  management  which  needed  radical  reform  before 
confidence  on  the  part  of  foreign  investors  in  American  railway 
securities  could  be  restored.  The  one  was  the  abolition  of  the 
one-man  power  in  the  president,  and  the  other  a  more  rigid  super¬ 
vision  of  competent  and  disinterested  experts  of  the  system  and 
correctness  of  American  railway  accounting. 

“The  report  of  Mr.  Little  on  the  affairs  of  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  Railway  Company,  just  issued,  strikingly  confirms  the  cor¬ 
rectness  of  this  criticism.  Unfortunately,  this  is  not  the  first 
investigation  to  which  the  affairs  of  this  company  have  been 
subjected  within  late  years,  nor  is  it  the  first  time  the  accuracy  of 
its  accounts  has  been  called  in  question  and  clearly  shown  to  be 
unreliable  and  untrustworthy. 

‘ 1  1888  a  Committee  of  Investigation,  of  which  I  was  Chair¬ 

man,  after  an  exhaustive  examination,  wrote  off  as  worthless 
some  $25,000,000,  which  as  an  asset  never  had  an  existence,  and 
which  only  appeared  to  the  credit  of  the  profit  and  loss  account 
as  the  result  of  the  systematic  manipulation  of  the  accounts 
upon  a  theory  of  finance  not  only  unsound  in  principle,  but  un¬ 
known  in  any  correct  system  of  bookkeeping.  ’ } 

Mr.  Keyser  then  goes  on  to  say  that  an  expert  accountant 
was  then  secured  and  the  books  made  to  conform  with  the  latest 
and  most  approved  system  of  railroad  bookkeeping.  This  man 
is  still  in  the  company’s  employ,  and  yet  the  old  system  was 
again  adopted,  the  books  being  made  to  conform  with  the  reports 
as  issued.  Mr.  Keyser  then  compares  the  condition  of  the  road 


364  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

as  represented  in  1888,  with  its  immense  so-called  surplus,  to 
that  of  the  present  day.  and  concludes  by  asking,  ‘  Who  is  respon¬ 
sible?’  He  then  goes  on  to  say: 

“That  the  responsibility  for  entailing  this  enormous  loss 
upon  the  investing  public  rests  somewhere  cannot  be  denied. 
While  during  a  part  of  the  time  under  review  business  con¬ 
ditions  were  not  favorable  for  railroad  earnings,  it  is  well  known 
that  well-managed  properties  have  held  their  own,  and  that  a 
diminution  or  temporary  loss  of  dividends  has  been  the  only 
disadvantage  the  stockholder  has  labored  under. 

“I  think  in  the  case  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad 
Company  the  one-man  power  has  been  largely  responsible.  The 
Board  of  Directors  of  this  property  have  apparently  never  exer¬ 
cised  any  control  over  its  affairs  or  accounting,  or  kept  them¬ 
selves  informed  of  the  situation.  Gentlemen  have  for  years 
loaned  their  respectable  names  to  give  currency  to  this  company  >a 
reports  and  inspire  confidence  in  its  management.  While  the 
public  at  large  were  openly  criticising  the  statements  and  the 
business  methods  in  vogue,  these  directors,  who  were  the  respon¬ 
sible  parties,  seem  to  have  contented  themselves  to  remain  in 
profound  ignorance  of  the  nature  and  bearing  of  the  large  trans¬ 
actions  which  have  resulted  in  saddling  upon  the  concern  im¬ 
mense  losses  and  untold  complications,  and  of  the  system  under 
which  the  accounts  were  being  handled,  and  apparently  indif¬ 
ferent  as  to  the  correctness  or  character  of  the  reports  for  which 
they  were  responsible. 

“The  first  step  toward  remedying  the  evils  of  the  past  is,  in 
mY  judgment,  to  determine  clearly  to  what  they  are  attributable, 
and  I  believe  the  incompetency  and  inefficiency  of  the  Board 
of  Management  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio 
Railroad  Company ’s  past  troubles.  When  the  chairman  of  the 
Finance  Committee  of  a  great  corporation  will  content  himself 
to  remain  in  absolute  ignorance  of  the  financial  condition  of  his 
company,  and  deliberately  close  his  eyes  when  the  air  is  full  of 
damaging  rumors  as  to  its  condition,  it  seems  to  me  the  time 
has  come  when  finance  committees  and  their  chairmen  are  no 
longer  wanted,  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  Boards  of  Directors. 

“A  wholesome  lesson  may  be  learned  from  the  past  and  the 
evils  to  some  extent  offset  if  a  radical  change  can  now  be  inau¬ 
gurated  so  that  in  the  future  this  and  other  similar  companies 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  365 


can  be  managed  by  men  who  accept  positions  recognizing  their 
responsibility  to  the  public,  and  who  will  see  to  it  that  no 
reports  of  the  president  and  directors  are  issued  without  at  least 
ordinary  precaution  and  diligence  being  used  to  make  sure  that 
the  figures  presented  are  based  upon  some  well-organized  prin¬ 
ciple  of  bookkeeping. 1  ’ 

A  few  years  later,  Hon.  William  Mason,  the 
clear-headed  and  patriotic  American  who  has  rep¬ 
resented  ns  as  Consul  General  at  Berlin  for  so 
many  years  past,  sent  this  message  to  the  Depart¬ 
ment  of  State : 

‘  ‘  The  uniform  reply  of  German  financiers,  when  asked  what  is 
requisite  to  restore  European  confidence  in  American  railway 
securities,  is  that  such  corporations  should  be  brought  under  the 
control  of  a  comprehensive  Federal  law.  Tradition,  education, 
and  experience  have  alike  taught  the  German  that,  whatever 
may  be  the  existing  form  of  government  in  any  country,  the  one 
sure  source  of  protection  and  safety  in  the  presence  of  danger 
or  conflicting  interests  is  the  supreme  authority  of  national 
control. 

‘  ‘  Mr.  Mason  says  that  the  German  railroad-license  system  is 
not  applicable  in  its  entirety  to  America,  and  adds  in  conclu¬ 
sion  :  ‘  It  is  believed  by  many  whose  experience  and  interests  in 
both  countries  entitle  their  opinions  to  respect,  that  it  should 
be  possible  to  frame  and  adopt  a  statute  applicable  to  at  least 
all  railway  companies  of  the  class  now  subject  to  the  Interstate 
Commerce  law,  and  which  shall  be  clear,  precise,  and  inexorable 
upon  the  following  topics,  viz: 

“  ‘  (1.)  Regulation  of  the  elections  of  railway  officers  so  that 
elections  shall  be  free  and  open  and  represent  directly  and  fairly 
the  wishes  and  interests  of  security  holders. 

li  ‘  (2.)  Creation  of  a  national  bureau  of  publicity,  inspection, 
and  control,  providing  for  the  regular  publication  at  stated 
periods  of  certified  reports,  showing  fully  and  accurately  the 
earnings,  expenses,  acts  of  directors,  and  all  business  results 
which  affect  the  value  of  corporate  property. 

ff  1  (3.)  Making  each  violation  of  the  law  by  any  act  of  usur- 


366  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

pation  or  wilful  mismanagement  a  crime  entailing  imprisonment, 
and  requiring  Federal  prosecuting  officers  to  institute  and  conduct 
prosecutions  for  such  offence. 

“  ‘(4.)  Providing  a  thorough  revision  of  the  system  of  pro¬ 
ceedings  under  which  courts  of  justice  now  appoint  receivers  to 
manage  railroads,  and  making  the  president  or  director  of  a 
defrauding  corporation  ineligible  for  appointment  as  a  receiver 
of  the  same  property.  ’  ’ 1 

A  very  short  time  ago,  when  Gates  outwitted 
Belmont  and  Morgan  in  cornering  control  of  the 
Louisville  and  Nashville,  this  is  an  obituary 
notice  which  I  clipped  from  The  New  York 
Herald  to  indicate  the  influence  which  is  literally 
killing  heart  and  hope  and  larger  usefulness 
throughout  the  ranks  of  our  great  army  of  honest, 
earnest,  and  practical  railroad  men,  under  our 

present  lack  of  system  in  corporation  manage¬ 
ment  : 

‘‘Worry  and  grief  over  the  loss  of  a  position  he  had  worked 
a  lifetime  to  gain,  caused  the  nervous  collapse  and  death  of 
Samuel  H.  Edgar,  formerly  second  vice-president  of  the  Louis¬ 
ville  and  Nashville.  He  had  worked  his  way  up  in  the  railroad 
office,  which  he  entered  as  a  poor  boy,  and  he  never  recovered 
from  the  shock  of  his  removal  when  the  road  went  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  Belmonts  about  a  year  ago. 

“Just  before  his  dismissal  he  married  Miss  Catherine  S.  Sten- 
house.  He  was  past  fifty  years  of  age,  and  had  told  his  friends 
he  had  been  too  busy  to  wed  before,  but  now  he  had  gained 
success  he  could  better  enjoy  his  home.  The  honeymoon  was 
scarcely  over  when  John  W.  Gates  engineered  the  famous  deal 
to  gam  control  of  the  Louisville  and  Nashville,  and  Mr.  Edgar 
was  removed  from  his  position. 

“He  went  South  with  his  bride  in  the  hope  of  regaining  his 
health,  and  for  a  time  seemed  to  throw  off  the  nervous  attack. 

Ill  health  returned,  however,  and  he  went  to  the  Oak  Hill  Sani¬ 
tarium,  in  Caldwell,  N.  J.,  where  his  death  occurred. 

Mr.  Edgar  was  born  in  Philadelphia  fifty-seven  years  ago. 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  367 

He  graduated  from  Girard  College  and  started  almost  immedi¬ 
ately  upon  a  railroad  life.  For  seventeen  years  he  was  in  the 
employ  of  Colonel  Henry  S.  McComb,  vice-president  of  the 
Louisville  and  J ackson  Railroad.  Two  years  he  spent  in  the 
employ  of  the  Mobile  and  Ohio,  and  for  the  last  twenty  years 
he  was  with  the  Louisville  and  Nashville. ,f 

I  might  go  on  massing  testimony  which  would 
reach  from  Credit  Mobilier  and  the  Erie  scandal 
down  to  Northern  Securities  and  the  Beef  Trust 
decision.  But  it  is  needless  to  repeat  what  vol¬ 
umes  have  been  written  about ;  needless  to  prove 
what  is  common  knowledge  among  all  intelligent 
men.  From  the  day  that  our  railroads  began  to 
carry  commerce  across  State  boundaries,  and 
from  the  hour  that  shippers  in  one  State  found  it 
impossible  to  get  fair  treatment  from  a  railroad 
chartered  in  another  State,  there  lias  been  inces¬ 
sant  demand  for  national  supervision  of  rail¬ 
roads.  Disinterested  bankers  everywhere,  at 
home  and  abroad,  have  joined  the  people  in  that 
insistent  demand.  Hundreds  of  honest  and  able 
railroad  managers  have  done  their  best  to  ad¬ 
vance  the  cause— the  record  of  certain  Pennsyl¬ 
vania  officials,  especially  in  the  matter  of  their 
authoritative  public  statements,  being  worthy  of 
the  highest  commendation.  But  just  as  there  are 
many  able  and  honest  men  in  the  United  States 
Senate  who  are  rendered  powerless  by  the  polit¬ 
ical  machine  which  now  dominates  that  body;  so 
there  are  hundreds  of  honest  railway  officials,  of 
the  first  order  of  ability,  who  are  rendered  power¬ 
less  to  effect  needed  reforms  by  the  formidable 
‘ 4  combination  ’  ’  of  millionaires  who  now  domi¬ 
nate  both  Wall  Street  and  Washington. 


368 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


All  America  deplores  the  awful  disaster  which 
overtakes  our  railroad  finances  when  we  have  a 
panic.  In  1873,  and  again  in  1893,  countless  for¬ 
tunes  were  lost  in  the  collapse  of  Wall  Street  val¬ 
ues  for  railroad  stocks  and  bonds.  In  1894— nine 
short  years  ago— full  three-fourths  of  our  rail¬ 
road  mileage,  actually  worth  billions  of  dollars, 
was  thrown  into  the  hands  of  receivers.  No  mind 
can  measure  the  human  misery,  the  deadening  of 
hope  and  ambition,  which  that  fact  entailed.  But 
these  awful  consequences  were  for  the  many — not 
for  the  few.  Every  man  at  all  familiar  with  our 
railroad  finance  well  knows  that  the  years  follow¬ 
ing  1873  and  1893  were  bounteous  harvest  seasons 
for  the  shrewd  investors  who  operate  in  Wall 
Street.  Then  it  was  that  they  bought  for  a  song, 
from  tens  of  thousands  of  uninformed  and  sorely 
frightened  small  investors,  millions  in  shares  and 
other  millions  in  bonds  which  have  since  made 
them  fabulously  rich  through  the  natural  and 
inevitable  recovery  of  actual  values.  And  to  sup¬ 
pose  that  shrewd  and  able  men,  in  control  of  the 
machine  and  intent  only  upon  riches,  will  ever 
permit,  much  less  promote,  any  change  in  our 
laws  which  would  make  these  harvest  seasons  im¬ 
possible  to  themselves  and  their  heirs— is  like 
hoping  that  Kings  will  voluntarily  resign  their 
high  offices. 

But  the  era  of  unscrupulous  manipulation  in 
Wall  Street  is  nearing  its  end.  The  investing  pub¬ 
lic  has  had  sorry  lessons  enough  to  teach  them 
that  the  values  of  our  railroad  franchises  endure 
— to  teach  them,  further,  that  the  future  values 
of  the  stocks  and  bonds  of  our  established  rail- 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  369 

road  systems,  under  honest  management  and  rea¬ 
sonable  supervision  of  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission,  are  just  as  certain  and  far  more 
profitable,  as  income  investments,  than  the  bonds 
of  the  United  States  of  America.  In  other  words, 
the  stockholders  in  our  railroads,  like  the  vast 
army  of  our  railroad  officials  and  employes,  have 
finally  learned  through  trying  experience  pre¬ 
cisely  what  Salmon  P.  Chase  long  ago  taught 
Ameiican  bankers.  One  and  all  they  are  ready  for 
legislation  which  will  put  into  practical  effect  just 
what  Mr.  Keyser  enjoined  in  the  letter  I  have 
quoted,  namely :  That  the  one-man  power  shall 
be  ended ;  and  that  no  reports  shall  be  issued  to 
the  public  without  “ordinary  precautions  and 
diligence  being  used  to  make  sure  that  the  figures 
presented  are  based  upon  some  well-organized 
system  of  bookkeeping.”  One  and  all— minus 
only  our  crop  of  millionaire  promoters— invest¬ 
ors  and  railroad  managers  are  full  ready  for  the 
immediate  passage  of  a  law  which  will  invest  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  with  full 
power : 

(1)  To  prescribe  a  precise  form  of  sworn  state¬ 
ment,  showing  receipts,  expenditures,  and  per¬ 
manent  improvements,  which  every  railroad  shall 
publish  at  least  four  times  a  year — just  as  our 
national  banks  publish  like  statements  five  times 
a  year. 

(2)  To  employ  a  staff  of  skilled  railroad  ac¬ 
countants  who,  without  notice,  will  periodically 
walk  into  any  and  all  offices  of  these  railroads  and 
open  their  books  and  papers  to  verify  the  accu- 


370 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


racy  of  published  statements,  and  to  investigate 
complaints  that  may  be  filed  with  the  Commission 
by  stockholders  and  shippers. 

(3)  To  prescribe  systematic  rules  for  publish¬ 
ing  the  rates  which  railroad  officials  see  fit  to 
establish  for  the  traveling  and  shipping  public; 
the  said  rules  to  indicate  the  uniform  procedure 
for  announcing  changes  in  rates ;  and  every  sched¬ 
ule  thus  published  to  have  displayed  upon  it,  in 
bold  type,  an  invitation  to  shippers  and  railroad 
employes  to  promptly  notify  the  Commission  of 
violations  of  the  published  rates,  under  pledge  of 
strict  secrecv,  should  the  informant  so  desire. 
This  latter  proviso  would  make  favoritism,  dis¬ 
crimination,  rebates,  drawbacks,  etc.,  so  danger¬ 
ous  a  business  that  within  a  short  time  criminality 
of  that  character  would  become  ancient  history. 

(4)  Finally,  the  law  should  be  mandatory  in  re¬ 
quiring  every  railroad  company  to  print  and  mail 
to  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission,  on  say 
January  1  and  July  1  of  each  year,  a  complete  and 
sworn  list  giving  the  name,  address,  and  number 
of  shares  of  every  registered  stock  and  bond 
holder.  Make  these  lists  available  to  stock  and 
bond  holders,  and  instantly  the  common  interests 
of  minority  stockholders  would  end  forever  the 
shameless  abuses  of  cliques  and  pools  in  Wall 
Street  who  now  secretly  manipulate  railroad 
property,  often  to  the  ruin  of  small  investors. 
Simply  supply  minority  stockholders  with  the 
opportunity  to  communicate  with  each  other 
readily,  and  they  will  quickly  find  the  men  and 
means  for  protecting  their  interests  and  property 
rights.  Not  a  man  could  then  aspire  to  so  respon- 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  371 

sible  and  so  honorable  a  post  as  Director,  unless 
he  could  command  the  confidence  and  the  votes 
of  a  majority  of  the  stockholders ;  and  not  a  pro¬ 
posal  as  to  development,  or  enlargement  and  re¬ 
funding  of  capital,  but  would  have  to  stand 
squarely  upon  its  merit  before  a  well-informed 
investing  public.  And  publicity  of  this  character 
would  so  stimulate  ambition  and  endeavor  among 
honest  and  able  men  who  have  entered  upon  rail¬ 
road  management  as  a  career,  and  who  know  how 
to  win  the  approval  of  their  stockholders,  that 
within  a  few  years  our  railroad  stocks  and  bonds 
would  become  favorite  investments  with  our 
whole  people.  Let  that  become  true,  and  who  can 
measure  the  future  mileage  of  our  railroads,  or 
the  future  value  of  their  securities— who  can  esti¬ 
mate  the  patriotic  pride  which  our  whole  people 
would  take  in  the  steady  development  of  these 
great  arteries  of  our  commerce  and  industry? 

We  need  not  waste  time  with  further  discussion 
of  the  impracticable  idea  of  empowering  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  with  authority 
to  fix  rates.  That  is  part  and  parcel  of  the  dreamy 
theory  of  State  Socialism,  or  4 ‘government 
ownership.”  Paternalism  may,  for  the  present, 
satisfy  Continental  people  who  are  ruled  by  legal¬ 
ized  aristocracies  and  who  have  had  little  or  no 
experience  in  self-government.  But  the  system  is 
radically  and.  dangerously  un-American.  The 
genius  of  our  institutions  and  the  abiding  genius 
of  our  people  are  opposed  to  the  concentration  of 
power  in  the  hands  of  a  few — be  they  political 
Lords  or  railroad  Lords. 

We  neither  desire  nor  need  to  own.  our  rail- 


372 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


roads  and  other  public  utilities  in  order  to  con¬ 
trol  and  enjoy  them  upon  terms  of  equality .  All 
we  need  is  to  open  their  books — to  apply  iden¬ 
tically  the  same  system  of  publicity  and  national 
supervision  which  has  solved  our  banking  prob¬ 
lem.  Not  one  question  as  to  transportation  rates 
or  rights  but  can  be  quickly  settled  between  ship¬ 
pers  and  railroad  managers,  if  we  simply  em¬ 
power  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  with 
authority  to  demand  the  presentation  of  all  the 
facts,  in  open  court,  in  every  case  of  dispute.  Do 
that,  and  railroad  officials  will  themselves  become 
voluntary  and  active  agents  in  avoiding  every 
occasion  for  contest.  This  is  true  because  low 
rates  is  the  potent  power  which  stimulates  traffic 
and  travel.  Self-interest  prompts  railroad  men 
to  increase  the  volume  of  their  business  as  fast 
as  possible.  Competition  with  each  other,  and 
competition  with  the  transportation  facilities  of 
our  lakes,  rivers,  and  canals — these  are  enduring 
forces  which  prove  the  economic  principle  that 
is  always  at  work.  And  for  proof  of  it  we  need 
only  compare  our  traffic  rates  with  those  of  Eng¬ 
land,  where  “community  of  interest”  is  in  full 
control,  and  with  those  of  the  Continent,  where 
experiments  in  “government  ownership”  have 
had  freest  play. 

We  lead  the  world  in  the  extent,  the  efficiency 
and  the  cheapness  of  our  transportation  facili¬ 
ties.  Our  railroads  and  street  railways  are  yet 
in  a  formative  stage — hardly  past  their  begin¬ 
nings.  Give  system  and  security  —  in  one 
word,  give  publicity — to  this  feature  of  our  in¬ 
dustrial  development,  and  no  living  man  can 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  373 

measure  the  additions  and  improvements  which 
increasing  population  and  increasing  production 
will  tempt  our  army  of  railroad  men  to  under¬ 
take. 

The  American  principle  of  individual  owner¬ 
ship  and  individual  initiative  is  what  has  guided 
us  thus  far.  It  is  simple  sentimentalism  which 
dreams  that  the  puissant  race  of  American  free¬ 
men  can  now  be  induced  to  abandon  that  prin¬ 
ciple  in  favor  of  paternalism.  For  picture,  my 
good  reader,  the  utter  paralysis  that  would  grip, 
halt  and  destroy  the  individual  initiative  of  every 
railroad  expert  in  America  if  he  had  to  submit 
to  the  direction  of  a  lot  of  politicians  in  Wash¬ 
ington  or  some  State  capital.  The  thing  is  un¬ 
thinkable— impossible— here  ! 

Beyond  this,  our  railroad  experience  has  now 
emphasized  the  further  lesson  which  banking  ex¬ 
perience  has  taught,  namely:  That  railroad  of¬ 
ficials  and  shippers  are  the  only  men  competent 
to  fix  rates — precisely  as  bankers  and  borrowers 
are  the  only  men  competent  to  decide  when  paper 
money  should  be  issued  to  meet  legitimate  trade 
requirements.  The  true  sphere  of  government 
is  to  preserve  order,  to  protect  life  and  property, 
and  to  establish  justice  between  man  and  man. 
Through  the  genius  of  Salmon  P.  Chase  we  have 
demonstrated,  once  and  for  all  future  time,  that 
our  national  government  can  protect  us  against 
the  dangers  of  bank  monopoly,  and  can  fully  dis¬ 
charge  its  natural  function  by  simply  preserving 
order  among  the  banks— precisely  as  it  preserves 
order  and  guarantees  equal  and  exact  justice  as 
between  our  individual  State  governments.  To 


374 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


extend  the  same  beneficent  and  long-tried  system 
to  our  railroads  is  now  so  logical  and  so  natural 
a  step  that  it  would  have  been  taken  long  ago  but 
for  the  formidable  opposition  of  those  who  have 
won  millions  through  secretly  monopolizing  and 
manipulating  the  people’s  invaluable  franchises 
for  public  utilities. 

Nor  need  we  worry  ourselves  in  the  least  over 
any  possible  danger  from  allowing  railroad  offi¬ 
cials  to  fix  rates.  Free  competition  for  traffic 
is  the  potent  element  which  dissolves  that  dan¬ 
ger  to  the  dead-level  of  open  bidding  for  the  larg¬ 
est  possible  volume  of  freight  at  the  lowest  pos¬ 
sible  price.  We  hear  a  great  deal  nowadays  of 
the  new-found  device  “community  of  interest,” 
which  is  to  give  our  great  Captains  of  Finance  a 
secure  monopoly  of  the  railroads.  But  it  trans¬ 
ports  us  to  the  regions  of  dreamland  if  we  sup¬ 
pose  that  the  level-headed  Cassatt  and  his  Penn¬ 
sylvania  followers  will  ever  surrender  to  the  Van¬ 
derbilts  ;  that  Hill  and  Morgan  will  grant  domin¬ 
ion  of  the  Northwest  to  Harriman  and  Kuhn- 
Loeb ;  or  that  the  Goulds  will  tolerate  the  pre¬ 
tensions  of  the  Moores.  No,  no ;  these  dignitaries 
of  the  W^all  Street  world  are  cutting  a  very  wide 
swath  in  the  popular  imagination  at  present,  and 
I  doubt  not  every  man  of  them  feels  that  he  is 
now  in  position  to  throttle  and  command  am¬ 
bitious  railroad  experts.  But  I  have  yet  to  learn 
that  we  owe  our  railroads  to  Wall  Street 
financiers.  Stephenson  gave  us  the  locomo¬ 
tive,  Stevens  gave  us  the  T  rail,  Fink  taught  us 
the  economy  of  iron  and  steel  bridges,  WTesting- 
house  made  high  speeds  possible  with  his  air 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  375 

brake,  and  Pullman  showed  us  how  to  build  mini¬ 
ature  palaces  on  wheels.  With  or  without  our 
wonder-working  Wall  Street  operators,  we  should 
certainly  have  had  our  railroads. 

The  fact  is  now  patent,  also,  that  through  eager¬ 
ness  for  millions,  and  especially  through  blood¬ 
thirsty  personal  rivalry,  our  nabobs  have  reck¬ 
lessly  subordinated  railroad  experts  to  Wall 
Street  tyranny.  This  betokens  sheer  ignorance 
and  disregard  of  the  underlying  forces  which 
move  society.  Strong  men  will  wreck  Wall 
Street  rather  than  submit  to  so  senseless  a  sys¬ 
tem  as  that  of  giving  a  tight-and-fast  combina¬ 
tion  of  stock-jobbers  and  moneyed  aristocrats  ar¬ 
bitrary  control  of  our  railroads  and  great  man¬ 
ufacturing  industries.  In  proof  of  this  we  have 
lately  seen  the  shrewd  little  Carnegie  upset  their 
“community-of-interest”  plans  and  force  the  for¬ 
mation  of  the  Steel  Trust  by  simply  threatening 
the  competition  of  water  transportation  from 
Conneaut,  token  they  withdrew  his  long-standing 
advantage  over  competitors  through  preferential 
freight  rates  from  Pittsburgh.  We  know  what 
happened  in  Wall  Street  on  May  9,  1901,  when 
Harriman  and  Schitf  all  but  captured  control  of 
the  Northern  Pacific.  We  have  seen  the  daring 
Gates  plunge  them  into  confusion  by  his  cornered 
control  of  the  Louisville  and  Nashville.  We 
have  watched  Moore  and  his  followers  reap  a 
harvest  of  hundreds  of  millions  from  the  Match 
Trust,  the  Cracker  Trust,  the  Tin  Plate  Trust, 
and  others,  only  to  invest  these  millions  in  the 
looming  Rock  Island  system.  We  have  taken 
note  that  Clark,  of  copper  and  Senatorial  fame, 


376 


JEFFEKSONIAN  DEMOCEACY. 


is  building  a  considerable  railroad  line  out  West. 
We  iiave  not  failed  to  observe  the  rapid  rise  in 
the  mileage  of  new  railroads  and  new  extensions 
now  building  and  projected.  And,  lastly,  the 
Panama  Canal  is  to  be  completed,  and  the  Erie 
Canal  is  to  be  dug  deep  enough  to  accommodate 
large  freight-carrying  vessels.  All  of  this  shows 
plainly  that  competition  can  not  be  permanently 
thi  ottled ;  that  men  of  inherent  power  will  not 
submit  to  dictation  from  any  combination  of 
other  men;  and  hence  that  the  “community-of- 
interest”  scheme  is  utterly  impracticable  as  a  so¬ 
lution  of  our  railroad  problem. 

Beyond  all  this,  though  many  of  us  have  for¬ 
gotten,  yet  a  sufficient  number  of  us  well  remem¬ 
ber  that,  back  in  1887,  when  ex-Senator  Peagan 
of  Texas,  with  the  foresight  of  true  statesman¬ 
ship,  was  demanding  the  enactment  of  the  law 
creating  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Commission, 
it  was  Albert  Fink — one  of  the  greatest  of  Amer¬ 
ican  railroad  men— who  gave  us  this  sound  teach¬ 
ing: 

4  ‘Transportation  tariffs  cannot  be  established  by  simple  arith¬ 
metical  or  mathematical  rules;  they  require  the  application  of  a 
number  of  principles,  all  correct  in  themselves,  to  a  great  variety 
of  ever-changing  facts.  This  is  necessarily  the  work  of  experts 
and  not  the  work  of  legislative  departments  of  government.  For 
this  reason,  all  attempts  to  lay  down  specific  rules  for  the  regula¬ 
tion  of  tariffs  have  heretofore  failed.  ” 

Lnder  the  process  of  underbidding  (secret  rebates,  draw¬ 
backs,  etc.),  heretofore  so  generally  practiced  by  competing  rail¬ 
road  companies,  a  practice  always  encouraged  by  the  shippers, 
and  incorrectly  called  competition,— no  just  and  equitable  tariff 
can  be  maintained.  I  say  competition  is  not  a  correct  name, 
because  legitimate  competition  can  always  be  carried  on  openly 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  377 

and  above  board;  the  process  described,  when  competitors  are 
under  an  agreement  to  maintain  the  same  tariff,  is  simply  a  proc¬ 
ess  of  cheating  and  deceiving ,  and  ought  not  to  be  dignified  by 
the  name  of  competition. 1  ’ 

“  The  competitive  railroad  tariffs  for  Inter-State  commerce 
are  not,  as  is  so  generally  supposed,  under  the  absolute  control 
of  railroad  managers;  the  carriers  by  water  routes  really  estab¬ 
lish  these  tariffs,  and  the  railroad  managers  have  nothing  to  do 
but  conform  to  them.  The  water  routes  not  only  control  the 
tariffs  of  their  immediate  rail  competitors  at  points  where  they 
can  render  like  service  to  the  same  people,  but  their  influence 
reaches,  directly  and  indirectly,  to  the  remotest  parts  of  the  coun¬ 
try.  Compared  with  this  natural  powerful  regulator  of  railroad 
transportation  tariffs,  the  efforts  of  State  or  Congressional  legis¬ 
lation  to  prevent  extortionate  charges  appear  to  those  who  are 
fully  conversant  with  the  subject  as  perfectly  useless;  and  the 
declamations  against  the  baneful  effect  of  the  so-called  railroad 
combinations  (pooling)  appear  simply  as  idle  talk. 

M  hile  the  water  routes  exist  only  between  Chicago  and 
New  York,  the  effect  upon  transportation  rates  is  felt  all  over 
the  country,  by  reason  of  the  competition  between  the  railroads. 
No  combination  of  the  railroads  can  suppress  this  competition. 
It  could  only  be  done  if  the  railroads  were  all  owned  by  one 
party,  and  were  operated  in  one  interest.  But,  as  it  is,  they  all 
have  separate  interests,  and  each  one,  in  guarding  its  own,  keeps 
up  this  competition;  and  the  rates,  even  when  agreed  upon  be¬ 
tween  themselves,  are  fixed  by  competition.  This,  unfortunately, 
is  not  understood  by  the  public.  It  is  generally  believed  that,' 
when  competing  railroads  agree  upon  uniform  rates,  this  excludes 
competition.  This  is  not  the  fact.  The  effect  of  water  compe¬ 
tition  is  felt,  not  only  east  of  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio  rivers, 
but  south  of  the  Ohio  river.  ’  ’ 

‘ 1  T°  the  south  there  is  the  water  route  from  New  York  to  New 
Orleans  via  the  ocean;  and  from  New  Orleans  freight  is  carried 
to  Memphis  and  Saint  Louis  and  the  West  via  the  Mississippi. 
In  order  to  meet  these  low  rates,  the  east  and  west  roads  from 
Louisville  and  Memphis,  or  from  Memphis  to  Norfolk  east,  have 
to  conform  again  to  the  low  rates  made  by  the  Atlantic  ocean 


378 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


and  the  Mississippi  river.  In  this  way  the  water-courses  are 
really  regulating  the  railroad  transportation  rates  throughout, 
one  may  say ,  the  whole  country.” 

“  There  is  plenty  of  competition  that  regulates  the  rates  and 
keeps  them  at  an  exceedingly  low  figure.  Not  only  do  the  water¬ 
ways  control  the  rates,— narrowly  limiting  them,  at  any  rate,— 
but  the  competition  of  the  markets  for  the  products  that  are  to 
be  carried,  is  another  great  factor  in  fixing  railroad  transporta¬ 
tion  rates.  The  price  of  carrying  grain,  for  example,  is  fixed  not 
by  the  railroad  companies,  but  in  the  markets  of  the  world.  That 
price  is  generally  regulated  now  by  the  Liverpool  market,  and,  if 
railroads  want  to  carry  any  grain,  they  have  to  carry  it  at  a 
price  that  will  enable  the  producers  to  compete  in  the  Liverpool 
market  with  the  markets  of  the  world.  So  widespread  is  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  competition  that  the  charges  for  transportation  in  East 
India  have  even  become  factors  in  making  railroad  rates  from 
Chicago  to  New  York.  There  is  no  danger  whatever  of  any  ex¬ 
cessive  charge.  ’  ’ 

1 1  Chicago  is  the  regulator  of  the  rates  throughout  the  whole 
country,  on  account  of  its  command  of  water  transportation. 
The  roads  carrying  freight  from  Chicago  to  the  east  have  now  an 
understanding,  according  to  which  each  one  agrees  to  be  satis¬ 
fied  with  a  certain  proportion  of  the  total  business  from  Chicago, 
and  each  one  pledges  itself  not  to  pay  rebates  or  secretly  lower 
its  rates  in  order  to  secure  more  than  the  proportion  agreed 
upon.  There  is,  of  course,  no  objection  to  any  one  of  the  roads 
reducing  its  rates  openly,  if  it  chooses  to  do  so,  for  then  the  other 
roads  can  make  similar  reductions;  but  it  is  agreed  that  these  re¬ 
ductions,  if  any  are  to  be  made,  shall  not  he  made  secretly,  in 
order  that  one  shipper  or  one  railroad  may  not  have  an  advan¬ 
tage  over  the  other.  ’ 1 

“It  is  a  mistaken  idea  that  these  arrangements  are  compacts 
for  the  purpose  of  preventing  competition,  and  it  is  upon  this 
erroneous  view  that  the  objections  are  based.  These  agreements 
to  divide  the  traffic  between  competing  roads  are  changeable,  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  interest  of  the  parties  to  the  agreement.  If  one 
or  the  other  railroad  company  improves  its  facilities  of  transpor¬ 
tation,  or  improves  its  connections,  and  thinks  it  is  entitled  to 
carry  a  larger  share  of  the  traffic  than  it  has  been  allowed  in  a 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  379 

division,  it  calls  for  a  revision  of  the  compact,  and  a  readjust¬ 
ment  must  be  made  according  to  the  merits  of  each  line.  In  this 
way  the  spirit  of  competition  is  kept  alive;  each  road  continues 
to  strive  to  secure  the  largest  patronage;  but,  instead  of  doing 
so  by  paying  rebates  and  by  violating  the  laws  of  common  car¬ 
riers,  it  has  to  use  open  and  legitimate  means  of  competition. 

The  objections  to  the  so-called  “ pooling’ ’  process  are,  there¬ 
fore,  based  upon  an  entire  misapprehension  of  its  nature  and  of 
its  good  effects.  It  possesses  the  great  advantage  over  absolute 
consolidation  of  railroad  property  that  it  keeps  up  the  spirit  of 
competition,  while  at  the  same  time  it  secures  the  advantage  of 
absolute  consolidation,— unity  of  management.  When  private 
parties  cannot  agree  on  questions  that  may  lead  to  dissension  and 
quarrels,  they  are  obliged  to  submit  them  to  the  adjudication  of 
properly-constituted  courts.  They  are  not  allowed  to  involve 
their  neighbors  in  their  quarrels;  they  are  not  permitted  to  set 
their  own  houses  on  fire  to  spite  each  other,  and  destroy  the 
property  of  their  innocent  neighbors.  And  why  should  not  the 
same  restrictions  of  the  law  be  applied  to  warring  railroad  com¬ 
panies,  whose  action  and  whose  management  involve  such  large 
public  interests,  and  who  are  really  the  creatures  and  the  serv¬ 
ants  of  the  public? 

It  is  time  that  the  antiquated  notion  that  has  taken  such  a 
strong  hold  of  the  legal  minds  of  the  country— the  notion  that  all 
agreements  between  railroad  companies,  in  regard  to  transporta¬ 
tion  tariff's,  are  against  public  policy,  and  are  in  the  nature  of 
conspiracies— should  at  last  give  way  to  a  proper  understanding 
of  the  true  nature  and  objects  of  these  agreements,  and  to  a  con¬ 
viction  of  their  necessity  and  of  their  highly  beneficial  results; 
and,  instead  of  prohibiting  such  agreements,  the  government 
should  give  them  legal  force  and  should  exercise  its  power  in  car- 
rying  them  out.  That  is  all  that  is  required  on  the  part  of  Con¬ 
gress  in  order  to  settle  this  vexatious  railroad  problem.” 

Here,  for  example,  is  a  sample  of  the  solid 
sense  Mr.  James  J.  Hill  teaches  upon  the  subject 
of  American  railroad  management  and  its  re¬ 
sults  : 

“We  have  settled  some  questions  in  this  country  in  such  a  way 
that  no  other  nation  thinks  our  settlement  at  all  permanent. 


380  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

For  instance,  land  transportation :  In  Great  Britain  it  costs  $2.35 
an  average  to  haul  a  ton  of  freight  one  hundred  miles.  On 
the  Continent  it  costs  about  $1.90;  in  the  United  States  it  costs 
70  cents— and  we  pay  four  times  the  wages  they  pay,  and  still 
we  furnish  the  transportation  for  a  little  more  than  one-third  of 
the  average  of  Europe.  Still  we  are  hardly  happy.  Sometimes 
we  would  like  to  furnish  it  for  nothing;  but  it  cannot  be  fur¬ 
nished  for  nothing. 

A  railroad  is  a  great  deal  like  the  French  cook,  when  they 
asked  him  what  he  wanted  to  make  soup.  ‘Oh,  anything.’ 
‘Yell,  what1?7  ‘Well, 7  he  said,  ‘a  joint,  a  piece  of  mutton,  a 
bone,  the  heel  of  an  old  shoe;  I  must  have  something;  but  I  can¬ 
not  make  it  out  of  nothing.  ’ 

“The  amount  of  traffic  has  grown  to  an  extent  that  east  of 
Chicago  the  railroads  cannot  carry  the  business.  You  could  not 
go  to  Minneapolis  and  make  a  contract  to  get  a  carload  of  flour 
or  a  trainload  of  flour  delivered  in  New  York — a  contract  you 
could  enforce  in  thirty  days,  because  nobody  knows  what  time  it 
will  take,  the  traffic  is  so  great. 

“Now,  there  are  two  ways  that  the  traffic  of  the  West,  grow¬ 
ing  as  rapidly  as  it  i3  growing,  can  find  its  way  to  market.  One 
is  down  the  Mississippi  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  That  is  active 
to-day.  Grain  sells  as  high  for  the  last  year,  as  a  rule, 
in  Kansas  City,  as  it  sells  in  Chicago — simply  because  it 
can  go  out  by  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  People  are  afraid 
now  to  send  their  grain  East  by  the  trunk  lines,  afraid 
they  may  not  get  it  until  next  spring.  The  other  is  by 
way  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  If  the  St.  Lawrence  system  were  im¬ 
proved  as  it  might  be,  it  would  take  the  great  bulk  of  our  export 
business  from  this  portion  of  the  West,  and  from  all  portions  of 
the  W  est  near  the  Great  Lakes. 1  ’ 

Throughout  the  whole  of  Mr.  Hill ’s  career  we 
have  had  free  competition  in  railroad  building, 
and  red  hot  competition  in  freight  rates.  Adam 
Smith  demonstrated  long  ago  that  low  prices  in¬ 
crease  consumption.  Without  knowing  much 
about  Adam  Smith,  our  enterprising  railroad 
men  learned  very  early  in  their  experience  that 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  381 

the  true  way  to  stimulate  all  kinds  of  traffic  on 
railroad  lines,  is  to  offer  low  rates.  Hence  our 
average  of  70  cents. 

But  during  all  this  time,  while  we  have  had 
driving  competition,  the  British  railways  have 
been  tightly  controlled  by  a  few  people  who  own 
them,  who  operate  them  upon  the  ‘ i  community-of  - 
interest’ ’  plan,  and  who  are  so  strongly  repre¬ 
sented  in  the  British  Parliament  that  they  block 
competition  in  both  railway  building  and  low 
freight  rates.  Hence  the  British  average  of  $2.35. 

Then,  all  over  the  Continent,  the  Socialists  are 
so  strong  and  the  aristocrats  are  so  grasping  that, 
between  them,  they  have  forced  the  different  gov¬ 
ernments  to  buy  and  operate  the  railroads  “in 
the  interest  of  the  whole  people.”  Hence  the 
Continental  average  of  $1.90. 

It  is  commonly  argued  nowadays  that  our  very 
low  rates  for  transportation  are  largely  due  to 
long  hauls,  big  cars,  and  heavy  train  loads— the 
wholesale  handling  of  freight,  in  short.  But  that 
logic  does  not  reach  deep  enough.  Fully  in¬ 
formed  men  see  clearly  enough  that  our  long 
hauls,  big  cars,  and  wholesale  handling  of  freight 
result  from  free  competition  and  individual  in¬ 
itiative  in  railroad  building— from  the  East  to 
the  West,  and  from  the  North  to  the  South.  En¬ 
terprising  men  will  be  sure  to  go  on  eagerly  with 
the  great,  good  work  of  extending  and  improving 
our  railroad  facilities,  so  long  as  they  are  sure  of 
individual  recognition  and  reward.  But  if  we 
permit  a  moneyed  aristocracy  of  Wall  street 
financiers  to  rule  over  and  dictate  terms  to  them 
—freight  rates  will  go  up,  railroad  building  will 


382 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


be  confined  to  the  “  insiders/ 9  and  we  shall  hear 
continuous  talk  of  “government  ownership. ” 

The  truth  is  that  our  railroads  are  yet  in  a 
progressive  stage  of  rapid  development.  The 
past  fifty  years  marks  the  phenomenal  era  of  cre¬ 
ation,  experiment,  construction,  and  natural  evo¬ 
lution  of  the  new  science.  Throughout  this  for¬ 
mative  period  practical  railroad  experts — the 
true  benefactors  of  mankind  in  the  railroad  world 
—have  been  busy  with  the  work  of  testing  and 
improving  the  new  system  and  science  of  trans¬ 
portation.  Political  science  has  lagged  so  far 
behind  them,  and  their  work  has  been  so  im¬ 
mensely  productive  and  profitable,  that,  for  the 
time  being,  mere  speculators  and  financiers  have 
been  allowed  to  capture  control— just  as  the 
Feudal  Barons  of  old  captured  control  of  all  Eu¬ 
rope  s  fertile  fields,  and  then  deliberately  estab¬ 
lished  a  “community-of-interest”  system  of 
legalized  lords  and  ladies,  to  employ  and  rule  over 
the  sturdy  yeomanry  who  cultivate  the  fields  and 
bless  mankind  with  the  fruits  of  honest  labor. 

But  our  heroic  ancestors  left  Europe  in  right¬ 
eous  disgust  with  the  tyranny  of  that  system ;  and 
it  is  now  plain  as  day  that  the  simple  duty  which 
rests  upon  us  is  exactly  parallel  to  the  duty  which 
rested  upon  our  Revolutionary  grandfathers. 
They  stiipped  the  aristocrats  of  titles  and  offices, 
and  they  gave  the  national  government  full  au¬ 
thority  over  inter-state  commerce— just  as  a  gen¬ 
eration  ago  our  fathers  took  a  like  step  when  they 
extended  that  national  authority  to  our  banking 
facilities.  To  put  the  proposal  in  definite  terms: 
What  we  need,  and  all  we  need  at  present,  is  to 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  383 

clothe  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Commission 
with  full  authority  to  force  the  men  who  are  en¬ 
trusted  with  the  administration  of  our  priceless 
franchises  for  public  utilities  to  face  Public  Opin¬ 
ion  in  open  court.  Do  that,  and  every  problem 
in  railroad  management  and  finance  will  be 
promptly  settled  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  think¬ 
ing  men— just  as  the  prolonged  and  horrible 
strike  in  the  anthracite  region  was  promptly  set¬ 
tled  when  the  mine  operators  were  forced  to  face 
the  miners  before  the  high  court  of  Public  Opin¬ 
ion.  In  one  word,  give  us  Publicity!  Truth 
and  justice  invite  the  light  of  day.  It  is  evil  and 
error  that  ever  hunt  the  cover  of  secrecy,  decep¬ 
tion  and  darkness. 

And  in  the  light  of  our  experience  in  banking 
and  railroad  management,  it  seems  almost  super¬ 
fluous  to  add  that  the  complete  solution  of  the 
perplexing  Trust  problem  is  to  be  found  in  a 
simple  extension  of  the  same  long-tried  system 
of  national  supervision  and  publicity.  These 
vaunted  “  combinations  ’ 9  are  neither  more  nor 
less  than  public  corporations,  created  by  and  for 
the  people.  They  are  chartered  in  many  differ¬ 
ent  States,  but  they  are  engaged  in  inter-state 
commerce ;  and  hence  they  come  within  the  sphere 
and  authority  of  the  national  government.  We 
are  indifferent  as  to  the  business  in  which  they 
may  be  engaged;  we  care  nothing  about  the 
amount  of  capital,  be  it  large  or  small,  which 
they  may  claim  to  have  invested  in  the  business ; 
we  ask  only  the  facts  as  to  the  actual  capital  in¬ 
vested;  and  we  have  no  desire  to  hamper  or  re¬ 
strict  their  legitimate  operations.  But  we  have 


384 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


a  very  vital  interest,  legally  proclaimed  long  ago, 
in  preventing  a  corporation  chartered  by  one 
State  from  exterminating  its  competitors  in  other 
States ;  we  have  formed  a  settled  determination 
to  make  these  wonder-working  combinations  live 
np  to  their  professions,  by  winning  customers 
through  the  “merits  and  cheapness  of  their  prod¬ 
ucts  :  ’  ’  and  we  have  a  clearly  defined  conviction 
that  most  of  them  have  been  formed  for  the  speci¬ 
fic  purpose  of  “speculation  in  stocks,  rather  than 
for  conducting  business.  ’  ’  Moreover,  we  know, 
to  our  heavy  cost,  that,  to  serve  Wall  Street  ends, 
prices  have  been  “raised  instead  of  lowered, 99  as 
the  promoters  promised.  This  is  notoriously 
true  of  coal  oil,  which  lights  the  homes  of  the 
poor,  and  of  iron  and  steel,  which  are  the  basis 
of  all  constructive  industry.  If  now  we  remove 
the  duties  on  Trust-made  products,  along  the  con¬ 
servative  lines  which  I  have  tried  to  indicate  in 
the  preceding  chapter,  we  shall  quickly  see  Trust 
prices  settle  down  to  a  normal  level  with  the  cor¬ 
responding  prices  in  free  trade  England.  That 
will  reduce  the  fabulous  profits  which  the  Trusts 
are  now  making,  and  it  will  hurt  the  Wall  Street 
values  of  their  watered  stocks.  But  it  will  not 
give  the  Trust  promoters  the  shadow  of  an  ex¬ 
cuse  for  shutting  down  factories  or  throwing  men 
out  of  work,,  because  they  have  told  us  that  there 
are  Trusts  in  free  trade  England,  precisely  as 
there  are  Trusts  here.  All  we  ask  is  that  Amer¬ 
ican  Trusts  shall  sell  as  cheaply  as  English 
Trusts —especially  ivhen  we  know  that  they  can 
manufacture  cheaper  here  than  there. 

Then  let  us  authorize  the  Inter-State  Commerce 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  385 

Commission  to  prescribe  a  form  of  quarterly 
statement  which  all  large  corporations  engaged 
in  inter-state  commerce  shall  be  required  to  pub¬ 
lish  in  the  newspapers ;  let  us  clothe  the  Commis¬ 
sion  with  power  to  open  the  books  of  these  cor¬ 
porations  for  the  purpose  of  verifying  these 
statements ;  let  us  specifically  demand  that  every 
such  corporation  shall  publish  at  the  end  of  every 
six  months  a  full  list,  giving  the  name,  address 
and  number  of  shares  of  each  of  its  registered 
stockholders;  and,  finally,  let  us  lodge  with  the 
Commission  the  discretionary  power  of  legally 
determining,  upon  investigation,  just  what  State 
corporations  come  within  the  purview  of  the  in¬ 
ter-state  commerce  law.  That  will  very  quickly 
give  us  the  publicity  which  will  make  an  end  of 
the  familiar  Wall  Street  business  of  forming  com¬ 
binations  for  the  purpose  of  “speculation  in 
stocks,  rather  than  for  conducting  business.’  ’ 

We  may  safely  entrust  this  specific  and  legally- 
limited  power  to  the  Commission  as  a  substitute 
for  the  unlimited  and  despotic  power  which  is 
now  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Theodore  Roosevelt— 
for  there  is  an  enormously  wide  difference  be¬ 
tween  the  two.  The  “one-man  power’ ’  has  been 
making  trouble  throughout  all  historic  time.  I 
have  a  logical  and  clearly-defined  conviction  that 
what  Mr.  Roosevelt  most  wants  at  present  is  a 
nomination  for  the  Presidency.  I  fear  that  he 
plans  to  use  his  despotic  power  to  force  his  nom¬ 
ination,  and  that  he  will  let  us  wait  for  publicity 
until  that  object  and  ambition  are  satisfied.  I 
think  millions  of  Americans  agree  with  me  in  this 
belief.  On  the  other  hand,  the  members  of  the 


386 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


Commission  are  under  no  such  suspicion  or  temp¬ 
tation;  and  being  at  the  post  of  duty,  with  hon¬ 
orable  ambition  to  win  renown  through  disinter¬ 
ested  public  service,  I  am  entirely  sure  that  every 
man  of  them  will  bend  all  his  energies  to  the  sin¬ 
gle  aim  of  giving  us  promptly,  prudently,  and  in 
full  measure,  that  degree  of  publicity  which  will 
afford  a  lasting  solution  of  the  whole  troublesome 
Trust  problem. 

To  summarize  this  whole  chapter:  What  we 
need,  and  all  we  need  at  present,  is  a  brief  amend¬ 
ment  of  our  Inter-State  Commerce  law  which  will 
give  us  (1)  publicity  in  railroad  and  corporation 
management;  (2)  an  emphatic  reassertion  of  na¬ 
tional  control  for  all  corporations  engaged  in  in¬ 
ter-state  commerce;  and  (3)  a  patriotically  word¬ 
ed  paragraph  which  will  proclaim,  anew  our  alle¬ 
giance  to  the  American  principle  of  individual 
ownership  as  opposed  to  all  insufferable  systems 
of  “government  ownership.” 

‘  That  government  is  best  which  governs  least. 

— Thomas  Jefferson. 

These  are  simple,  logical  and  necessary  changes 
in  our  existing  laws  which  will  satisfy  the  peo¬ 
ple,  and  at  the  same  time  give  the  stockholders 
and  directors  of  every  existing  corporation  free 
scope  and  opportunity  to  proceed  with  the  con¬ 
duct  and  development  of  their  legitimate  busi¬ 
ness  under  present  State  charters,  if  they  so  elect. 
But,  beyond  this,  the  next  needful  step  in  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  our  political  system,  the  step  which 
would  put  us  far  in  advance  of  all  the  rest  of  the 
world,  and  the  step  which  would  make  an  end  of 


PUBLICITY  AND  INTER-STATE  COMMERCE.  387 

all  agitation  for  paternalistic  proposals  of  “gov¬ 
ernment  ownership/’  is  a  law  providing  for  char¬ 
ters  to  national  corporations  which  desire  to  en¬ 
gage  in  inter-state  commerce.  With  Chase’s 
priceless  and  imperishable  statute  for  national 
banks  before  us,  if  now  Congress  will  invite  the 
members  of  the  Inter-State  Commerce  Commis¬ 
sion  to.  draft  and  submit  a  parallel  statute  for 
chartering  industrial  and  commercial  corpora¬ 
tions— then  we  can  go  on  our  way,  rejoicing  in  the 
knowledge  that  we  are  worthily  filling  out  the  des¬ 
tiny  which  “they  who  fought  have  thus  far  so 
nobly  advanced. 9  9 


MINE  MONOPOLY  AND  LAND  SPECULA¬ 
TION. 


“Give  a  man  the  secure  possession  of  a  bleak  roek,  and  he  will 
ln.t®  a  Sar,len;  give  him  a  nine-years’  lease  of  a  garden, 
and  he  will  convert  it  into  a  desert.”  - Arthur  Young. 

“  Peasant  proprietorship,  or  properly,  proprietorship  of  land 
by  its  cultivator,  is  the  natural  system  of  land  tenure,  whether 
considered  abstractly  or  by  its  results.  ’  1 

— J.  W.  Barclay,  M.  P. 


“Let  us  be  attentive  to  these  (our  natural  advantages)  and 
then  the  power  of  rivals,  with  all  their  restraining  and  prohibit¬ 
ing  acts,  cannot  much  hurt  us.  We  are  sons  of  the  earth  and 
seas,  and  the  touch  of  our  parents  will  communicate  to  us  fresh 
strength  and  vigor  to  renew  the  contest.” 

— Benjamin  Franldin. 


Our  people  will  remain  virtuous  so  long  as  agriculture  is  our 
principal  obi  ect,  which  will  be  the  case  while  there  remain  vacant 
lands  m  America.  When  we  get  piled  on  one  another  in  large  cit- 
les,  as^in  Europe,  we  shall  go  to  eating  each  other  as  they  do 
ere’  — Thomas  Jefferson. 


x>  Pro^est  against  any  sale  or  alienation  to  others,  of  the 

Jrublie  Lands  held  by  actual  settlers;  and  against  any  view  of 
the  Homestead  policy  which  regards  the  settlers  as  paupers  or 
suppliants  for  public  bounty;  and  we  demand  the  passage  by 
Congress  of  the  complete  and  satisfactory  Homestead  measure 
which  has  already  passed  the  House. ’  ’ 

— Bepublican  Platform,  1860. 


Chapter  XI. 


The  Ii  ish  people  have  exhibited  to  the  world 
so  prolonged  and  tragic  a  struggle  for  the  right 
to  cultivate  their  native  soil  free  from  the  tribute 
of  absentee  landlords ;  and  in  recent  years  Henry 

388 


mine  monopoly— land  speculation.  389 


George  has  given  us  such  a  martyr-like  crusade 
in  favor  of  his  impossible  scheme  of  confiscating 
land  values  through  the  single  tax,  and  national¬ 
izing  all  public  utilities  through  4  4  government 
ownership,”  that  thinking  men  now  seem  to  ap¬ 
proach  consideration  of  the  land  question  with  a 
sense  of  fear  and  trembling.  But  just  as  the 
troublesome  money  question  becomes  as  simple  as 
A,  B,  C,  when  once  we  understand  it,  so  the  land 
question  is,  in  reality,  one  of  the  very  simplest 
with  which  modern  society  has  to  deal. 

And  it  is  vitally  necessary  that  we  now  face 
the  fundamental  facts  and  principles  of  land  own¬ 
ership  ;  for  when  the  Steel  Trust  promoters  bra¬ 
zenly  tell  us,  in  cold  print  under  oath,  that  their 
Lake  Superior  iron  mines  and  their  little  Con- 
nellsville  coke  fields  are  actually  worth  Seven 
Hundred  Millions  of  Dollars— then  it  is  high  time 
for  us  to  wake  up  to  the  immeasurable  value  of 
all  the  rest  of  our  exhaustless  stores  of  natural 
wealth,  which  no  man  ever  spent  a  moment  \s  time 
in  producing,  for  which  our  fathers  fought,  bled 
and  died  that  we  might  enjoy  them  in  equal  op¬ 
portunity  under  the  law,  and  which  speculators 
and  promoters  are  now  cornering  for  personal 
profit. 

So,  too,  when  the  monopolists  of  our  anthracite 
coal  fields  inflict  upon  us  every  two  or  three  years 
a  horrible  strike  of  their  coal  miners ;  when  the 
published  evidence  proves  that  for  a  generation 
past  they  have  been  tyrannizing  over  and  brutally 
impoverishing  tens  of  thousands  of  their  em¬ 
ployees;  when  we  know  that  over  twenty  thou¬ 
sand  helpless  little  children,  who  ought  to  be  at 


390 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


school  and  play,  serve  them  patiently  through  full 
ten  hours  of  each  weary  working  day;  when  we 
see  them  contemptuously  insult  the  Chief  Mag¬ 
istrate  of  this  Nation  of  eighty  million  freemen; 
when  an  honest  leader  of  the  striking  miners  can 
hold  himself  in  masterful  self-control  while  he 
deliberately  forces  these  “Christian  men”  to  sub¬ 
mit  their  claims  to  fair  and  open  arbitration; 
when  a  Commission  appointed  by  the  President 
listens  to  all  the  evidence  and  then  decides  the 
major  portion  of  the  issues  in  favor  of  the  strik¬ 
ing  miners— NOW,  I  say,  it  is  time  to  go  to  the 
bottom  of  that  trouble.  For  a  disinterested  Har¬ 
vard  Professor,  after  eighteen  years  of  personal 
study  of  conditions  “in  that  unhappy  anthracite 
•region,”  affirms  in  print  that  “the  employers  will 
tell  you  openly  and  with  unconscious  bravado 
that  they  must  get  in  cheaper  and  cheaper  labor 
to  keep  wages  down.  ’  ’  One  of  their  number  also 
tells  that  same  Harvard  Professor  that  “through 
railroad  control  we  have  got  the  anthracite  where 
no  independent  operator  can  trouble  us  a  bit;” 
and  this  after  we  have  proof  that  all  their  mil¬ 
lions  and  all  their  contemptible  show  of  power  are 
based  upon  a  “community-of-interest”  monopoly 
of  this  little  corner  of  Nature’s  bounty  to  man¬ 
kind.  Hence  again,  I  say,  it  is  high  time  that  we 
look  back  to  see  how  and  why  they  have  been 
granted  title  deeds  to  the  land  which  give  them  an 
exclusive  and  merciless  monopoly. 

And  we  don’t  have  to  look  far! 

It  was  Thomas  Jefferson  who  wrote:  “I  ever 
fondly  cherished  the  interests  of  the  West,  rely¬ 
ing  on  it  as  a  barrier  against  the  degeneracy  of 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  391 

public  opinion  from  our  original  and  free  prin¬ 
ciples.’ ’  It  was  also  Thomas  Jefferson  who,  for 
fifteen  millions  of  dollars,  purchased  from  Napo¬ 
leon  Bonaparte  the  whole  of  the  Louisiana  Terri¬ 
tory — the  most  marvelous,  unmatched,  and  abso¬ 
lutely  priceless  public  domain  that  any  ruler  ever 
made  a  free  people  heir  to.  The  title  deed  was 
written  in  the  Nation’s  name;  the  people’s  money 
paid  for  it;  and  from  the  day  of  its  purchase  to 
this  hour  the  plain  intent  of  every  statute  con¬ 
cerning  it  has  been  to  reserve  the  lands  for  home¬ 
stead  settlement,  and  to  reserve  the  mining  claims 
for  those  who  actually  work  them.  The  Lake  Su¬ 
perior  iron  ore  deposits  were  part  of  our  Public 
Domain.  Every  title-deed  to  land,  and  every 
mining  patent  throughout  that  whole  region,  is 
based  upon  our  Congressional  statutes  providing 
for  the  development  of  that  Public  Domain.  And 
the  underlying  principle  of  all  that  legislation,  as 
every  statute  specifically  proclaims,  is  actual  oc¬ 
cupancy  and  use.  But,  contrary  to  the  clear  in¬ 
tent  of  all  these  national  statutes,  State  laws  now 
permit  a  small  group  of  rich  men  to  monopolize 
and  hold  out  of  use  vast  stores  of  this  natural 
wealth  in  iron  ores;  and  thus— thus  onlv— a 
“community-of-interest”  combination  has  been 
formed  in  Minnesota  ore  lands  which  is  exactlv 

4/ 

parallel  to  the  now  familiar  Trust  which  controls 

the  anthracite  coal  fields  of  Pennsvlvania. 

%/ 

How  to  defeat  their  designs,  and  how  to  insure 
equal  and  exact  justice  to  all  parties  concerned,  is 
a  problem  which  sorely  perplexes  people  who 
have  not  studied  the  subject.  But  the  fact  is 
that  the  way  out  of  the  difficulty  is  as  plainly 


392  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

charted  as  the  familiar  courses  of  Atlantic  steam¬ 
ers  sailing  between  the  old  and  the  new  homes  of 
our  race ;  and  all  we  need  do  is  to  refer  back  to 
the  record  to  see  what  our  Anglo-Saxon  ancestors 
have  done  before  under  similar  circumstances. 

Writing  in  The  Engineering  Magazine  a  few 
years  ago,  Mr.  W.  C.  Wynkoop,  of  Denver,  gave 
this  concise  review  of  mining  development  in 
the  West: 

Jn  the  early  days  in  the  mining  regions,  the  district  laws  al¬ 
most  everywhere  made  lode  mining  claims  from  100  to  200  feet 
in  length  along  a  lode,  in  most  cases  only  100  feet,  and  restricted 
every  man  to  one  claim  on  a  lode,  unless  he  were  the  discoverer, 
in  which  case  he  was  generally  given  two  claims.  Gulch  or 
placer  mining  claims  were  even  smaller.  If  they  were  in  a  nar¬ 
row  mountain  valley,  they  were  generally  50  or  100  feet  along  the 
stream,  reaching  from  one  side  of  the  valley  to  the  other.  These 
district  laws  everywhere  were  based  upon  the  theory  that  every 
man  should  have  a  fair  chance  at  the  mining  wealth,  and  that  no 
man  should  monopolize  more  than  his  share.  At  first  there  was 
seldom  any  law  requiring  a  locator  to  perform  any  labor,  or  do 
any  development  work  on  a  claim,  the  presumption  being  that  no 
man  would  take  a  claim  except  to  work  it.  But  this  was  soon 
proven  incorrect.  There  were  men  who  devoted  their  whole  time 
to  acquiring  claims,  for  the  purpose  of  selling  them,  and  this 
struck  the  sense  of  justice  as  being  wrong;  so  the  universal  rule 
soon  became  one  to  compel  the  performance  of  a  certain  amount 
of  labor  on  each  claim  in  order  to  hold  it.  The  amount  of  labor 
required  to  hold  a  claim  varied  from  one  day  per  week,  to  prac¬ 
tically  constant  work.  Wherever  there  had  been  the  most  aggra¬ 
vated  cases  of  “hogging”  or  monopolizing  claims,  there  was 
sure  to  be  a  rule  requiring  the  largest  amount  of  labor.  I  re¬ 
member  hearing  one  rough  miner-orator  addressing  a  meeting 
around  a  camp-fire  one  night,  who  said  ‘  air,  water,  the  earth  and 
all  its  mines  belong  to  humanity,  and  no  man  has  any  human  or 
divine  right  to  monopolize  any  more  of  any  one  of  them  than  he 


mine  monopoly— land  speculation.  393 

rampUSe  7  iAn<1  thlS  WaS  a  doctrine  of  use  which  everywhere  be¬ 
came  popular,  and  which  was  enacted  into  our  present  statute 
regarding  unpatented  mining  claims. 

ut  there  was  great  annoyance  and  considerable  friction 

trT8  th!  “arked  diff-enco  in  the  laws  of  adjoining  I 

a  claimmilh!  ™P°SSibUity  of  ***«  *■  which  district 

was  held  Thf'7  ’  T’  conse<Juentiy  und«  what  laws  it 

was  held.  The  annoyance  from  these  causes  became  so  great 

•  r,fe.enaC  ment  °f  a  statute  by  Congress  in  1866,  giving  men 
a  right  to  locate  and  obtain  title  to  mines  on  the  pubfic  domain 

fuTioT  Ca°nTd'  14  Pron;ised  uniformity  where  there  had  been  con-’ 
Sion,  and  immediately  upon  its  passage  the  district  organiza- 

ouentlT  reral'y  aU°Wed  ‘°  PaSS  °Ut  °f  exist-ue.  Subse- 

States  statat  8  W6re  alm°St  Universally  made  under  the  United 
States  statutory  requirements. 

“The  old  lode  locations  of  100  feet  each  were  made  under  dis¬ 
trict  laws  framed  by  men  who  were  almost  all  ignorant  of  the  art 
o  mining.  The  object  in  limiting  a  man  to  such  a  small  part  of 
a  lode  was  to  prevent  the  monopoly  of  too  much  ground  by  one 
man.  There  was  a  fear  that  nature  had  been  very  niggardly  in- 
er  creation  of  veins,  and  that  unless  the  size  of  locations  was 
restricted  to  small  dimensions  there  would  not  be  enough  to  go 
around.  It  needed  but  a  little  experience  to  demonstrate  th!t 
100  feet  on  a  lode  was  not  enough  ground  to  pay  for 
any  plan  of  mining  development.  On  this  account  the  act 
of  Congress  of  1866  made  the  length  of  a  lode  location  1,500 
eet  But  this  act  did  not  require  locators  to  do  any  work  an¬ 
nually,  or  otherwise,  to  hold  their  claims.  When  a  man  had 
made  a  location  in  compliance  with  the  law,  he  was  under  no 
obligation  to  do  anything  more  to  hold  it  and  retain  its  legal 
possession  The  result  was  that  the  entire  known  lode-bearing 
portion  of  the  country  was  soon  covered  with  locations  made  by 
men  who  were  unable  or  unwilling  to  develop  them.  There  were 
numbers  of  poor  prospectors  who  each  had  from  fifty  to  two 
hundred  mining  locations.  The  law  made  them  impregnable  in 
their  dog-in-the-manger  position.  The  country  was  being  stag- 

kl  6d  b  es  mining  indUStr7  WaS  b6ing  raPid,y  stifled  and 
killed  by  this  act.  The  result  was  seen  in  the  production  of 

precious  metals  all  over  the  West,  outside  of  the  Comstock  mines 

It  was  rapidly  declining.  In  Colorado  the  production  for  the 


394 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


14  years  preceding  the  law  of  1872  had  averaged  about  $2,000,- 
000  per  year.  Immediately  upon  the  passage  of  that  act  it  rose 
to  $4,000,000  the  first  year,  and  has  been  increasing  steadily  from 
year  to  year  till  it  now  (1895)  equals  about  $30,000,000  annually. 
One  principal  cause  of  the  increase  was  this  change  in  the  law. 

“The  act  (of  1872)  changed  the  rule  under  which  locators 
could  hold  claims.  It  required  that  on  an  unpatented  claim  the 
locators  must  annually  perform  labor  to  the  value  of  at  least 
$100,  and  a  failure  to  perform  such  labor  forfeited  all  his  rights, 
so  that  the  claim  became  open  to  location  by  others.  The  result 
was  that  nearly  all  the  thousands  of  claims  held  by  men  who 
could  not  or  would  not  comply  with  the  law,  were  relocated. 
Among  the  best  mines  in  the  West  are  many  which  were  so  re¬ 
located,  and  which,  but  for  such  a  law,  would  yet  probably  re¬ 
main  unproductive  prospect  holes.  To  this  feature  of  the  law  of 
1872  can  be  credited  much  of  the  impulse  given  to  mining;  which 
in  its  turn  has  caused  the  construction  of  thousands  of  miles  of 
railway,  built  populous  cities  and  towns,  and  added  over  a  billion 
dollars  to  the  permanent  metallic  wealth  of  the  country. 

“One  can  now  get  a  complete  title  to  mining  locations  by  pat¬ 
ent,  after  which  he  can  hold  them  forever,  without  compliance 
with  any  further  conditions.  The  result  is  that  all  over  the  min¬ 
ing  regions  there  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  patented  mining 
properties  lying  idle  and  unproductive.  There  is  only  this  check 
upon  patenting,  that  it  involves  some  expense,  trouble  and  delay. 
It  is  a  return  in  some  degree,  to  the  conditions  which  prevailed 
between  1866  and  1872,  when  mine  owners  owned  property  which 
they  could  not  or  would  not  work,  and  which  others  could  not 
work.  There  are  many  portions  of  the  mining  country  whose  pros¬ 
perity  and  development  are  seriously  retarded  by  the  great  num¬ 
ber  of  idle  patented  properties  covering  them.  Of  course  it  would 
be  impossible  for  the  United  States  to  enact  any  law  now  which 
would  affect  the  title  of  these  properties,  and  impose  any  condi¬ 
tions  upon  their  owners  except  upon  the  basis  of  compensation  to 
present  owners.  But  it  is  not  impossible  to  legislate  for  the 
future  so  that  the  laws  may  have  a  tendency  to  promote  mining 
development  instead  of  retard  it.  To  do  this  the  country  has 
only  to  adopt  a  system  analogous  to  that  of  other  countries  which 
are  rich  in  the  precious  metals.  In  other  words,  man  can  acquire 
an  equitable  right  to  that  which  he  creates;  but  things  which  are 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  395 

a  part  of  nature  belong  to  humanity,  and  no  man  has  any  right  to 
exercise  control  over  them  except  as  he  makes  use  of  them. 7  * 

Now,  to  make  an  end  of  strikes  in  that  “un¬ 
happy  anthracite  region ;  ' '  to  give  the  operators 
and  tiie  miners  no  good  reason  for  ever  again  ap¬ 
pealing  to  the  national  authorities  for  settlement 
of  their  differences ;  to  free  the  twenty-odd  thou¬ 
sand  helpless  little  children  from  the  awful 
slavery  which  is  crushing  them  and  cursing  us; 
to  insure  plenty  of  work  and  good  wages  to  all 
that  “absurd  surplus  of  labor  which  hangs  about 
the  mines,”  and  to  give  the  whole  Eastern  coun¬ 
try  anthracite  coal  tor  our  cooking  stoves,  fur¬ 
naces,  and  factory  fires,  at  a  normal  price,  under 
conditions  of  free  and  fair  competition  in  min¬ 
ing-all  we  need  do  is  apply  the  simple  prin¬ 
ciple  of  occupancy  and  use,  under  which  wTe  have 
been  enriched  by  the  enormous  mining  develop¬ 
ment  throughout  the  whole  of  our  Public  Do¬ 
main. 

In  other  words,  because  Pennsylvania's  absurd 
laws  now  permit  the  men  who  own  the  coal  fields 
to  hold  them  out  of  use ,  and  because  our  more 
absurd  national  laws  permit  a  few  men  who  con¬ 
trol  the  railroads  to  monopolize  them ,  precisely 
as  Rockefeller  and  his  crowd  monopolize  the 
pipe-lines,  it  is  possible  for  Divine-right  Baer's 
little  bunch  of  anthracite  coal  barons,  boasting 
their  legal  rights,  to  form  a  “community-of-in- 
terest"  combination— with  Quay  leading  the  poli¬ 
ticians,  with  Olyphant  leading  the  coal-land  own¬ 
ers,  and  with  Morgan  leading  the  railroad  finan¬ 
ciers.  And  thus,  in  secret  council,  they  limit  the 
output  of  anthracite  coal ;  they  regulate  the  wages 


396  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

ivhich  they  deem  it  necessary  to  pay  the  one  hun¬ 
dred  and  forty  thousand  freemen,  and  their  chil¬ 
dren,  who  mine  the  coal ;  and  they  arbitrarily  fix 
the  price  at  seaboard  for  every  ton  of  anthracite 
that  is  needed  for  our  home  consumption  and  fac¬ 
tory  production . 

“  But  time  at  last  sets  all  things  even.” 

John  Mitchell  has  shown  them  that  working¬ 
men  know  how  to  ‘ 4  combine  ” — and  also  know 
how  to  be  reasonable  and  fair !  The  Commission 
which  the  sturdy  miners  forced  the  President  to 
appoint  and  forced  the  operators  to  obey,  has  also 
shown  what  happens  when,  in  open  court,  we  sub¬ 
mit  our  differences  to  the  impartial  judgment  of 
a  jury  of  our  peers.  And  thus  again— as  upon 
countless  occasions  before,  reaching  the  full 
length  of  our  age-long  struggle  for  liberty  and 
opportunity— we  see  the  priceless  value  of  “the 
ancient  right  of  trial  by  jury.” 

Now,  proud  Pennsylvania,  to  the  front! 

We  know  your  history.'  We  know  that  the 
peace-loving  and  ostentation-hating  Quakers  set¬ 
tled  your  colony  and  laid  the  secure  foundations 
of  your  free  institutions.  In  early  days  you 
boasted  yourself  the  stamping-ground  of  the 
forces  of  patriotism,  the  meeting  house  of  the 
Revolution,  the  verv  cradle  of  Libertv.  Our  im- 
mortal  Declaration  of  Independence  wras  signed 
in  your  Independence  Hall ;  and  the  Constitution 
was  thought  out,  fought  out,  and  actually  written 
in  Philadelphia.  The  liberty-loving  boy  Benja¬ 
min  Franklin  fled  from  Massachusetts  to  find 
refuge  and  life-work  in  your  midst;  and  it  was 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  397 

your  freedom,  your  hospitality,  and  your  oppor¬ 
tunities  that  made  possible  the  manhood  and  sane 
maturity  which  accomplished  all  the  wonderful 
work  that  he  lived  to  do.  Washington  and  Jeffer¬ 
son  came  from  Virginia  to  meet  with  Samuel 
Adams  and  John  Adams  from  Massachusetts ;  and 
when  these  men  sat  in  conference  at  Philadelphia 
with  Benjamin  Franklin,  John  Dickinson,  Robert 
Morris,  Gouverneur  Morris  and  all  the  lesser 
leaders  from  the  smaller  colonies— they  did  a 
work  the  like  of  which  recorded  history  nowhere 
else  sets  down  in  print.  We  know,  further,  that 
your  fighting  freemen  followed  Washington  and 
followed  Jefferson  with  love  and  loyalty  through¬ 
out  the  whole  period  of  the  Revolution,  from  1765 
to  1800.  In  1832  you  gave  Andrew  Jackson  a 
popular  majority  of  over  50,000  votes.  In  1860 
you  gave  Abraham  Lincoln  a  still  larger  vote; 
and  in  1864  you  enormously  increased  the  sturdy 
rail-splitter’s  majority.  In  the  light  of  this  proud 
record  of  patriotic  achievement,  we  do  not  enter¬ 
tain  a  doubt  that  every  honest  freeman  in  your 
borders  blushes  at  the  thought  of  Matt  Quay’s 
corrupt  domination  of  your  political  life. 

Now  again  a  noble  opportunity  is  yours. 

The  specific  reform  which  we  ask  at  your  hands 
—to  insure  your  own  peace  and  prosperity,  as 
,  well  as  ours— is  a  simple  amendment  of  your 
State  laws  which  will  make  it  impossible  for  any 
man,  or  any  combination  of  men,  to  hold  anthra¬ 
cite  coal  deposits  out  of  use.  In  other  words,  do 
for  your  anthracite  miners  substantially  what 
Congress  did  for  our  Western  miners  in  1872. 
Amend  your  mining  laws  so  that  any  independent 


398  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

operator  with  capital,  credit,  experience,  and 
eager  readiness  for  the  productive  business  of 
mining  coal,  may  be  able  to  go  to  the  men  and 
women  who  now  own  your  unused  and  unproduc¬ 
tive  coal  deposits,  and  say  this:  “We  desire  to 
buy  these  mining  rights  ;  we  are  ready  to  pay  a 
fair  price  for  them  at  the  present  market  valua¬ 
tion  ;  we  pledge  ourselves  to  open  and  operate  the 
mines ;  and  if  you  the  seller,  and  we  the  buyer, 
cannot  agree  upon  a  price,  we  are  willing  to  sub¬ 
mit  our  differences  to  the  judgment  of  a  jury  of 
our  peers/  ’  Then  grant  to  these  independent  op¬ 
erators  the  further  right  to  build,  at  their  own 
cost,  short  branch  lines  connecting  with  your 
trunk-line  railroads,  so  that  their  products  may 
be  shipped  to  the  markets  where  needed,  at  the 
same  pro  rata  rates  of  transportation  which  all 
other  coal  miners  enjoy. 

There  is  nothing  new  or  novel  in  this  proposal. 

It  is  just  as  easy  to  fix  the  equitable  limits  of  a 
coal-mining  property,  as  it  is  to  define  a  mining 
claim  for  gold,  silver,  lead,  copper,  iron  ore,  or 
any  other  metal.  Coal-mining  rights  require 
larger  boundaries  than  precious-metal  mining— 
because  the  product  is  less  valuable.  But  the 
principle  is  the  same,  and  if  we  “follow  principle, 
the  knot  unties  itself/  ’  Our  national  statutes 
show  precisely  how  the  thing  has  been  done 
throughout  the  whole  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  ; 
and  any  honest  coal-mining  engineer  can  readily 
supply  the  technical  language  for  a  statute  pre¬ 
scribing  the  forms  of  title-deeds  for  coal-mining 
rights.  Beyond  this,  time  out  of  mind,  through¬ 
out  the  whole  history  of  the  liberty-loving  Anglo- 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  399 

Saxon  race,  “the  ancient  right  of  trial  by  jury” 
has  been  the  very  basis  of  all  our  legal  institu¬ 
tions.  To  this  tribunal  we  have  submitted,  not 
alone  every  property  right,  but  also  our  liberties, 
our  good  names,  and  our  very  lives.  Jury  trial  is, 
in  truth,  the  corner-stone  of  free  institutions— the 
parting  of  the  ways  between  right  and  might,  be¬ 
tween  paternalism  and  freedom,  between  mo¬ 
nopoly  and  free  competition,  between  civilization 
and  barbarism.  Under  monarchy,  under  aristoc¬ 
racy,  and  under  majority  rule;  throughoutEurope, 
in  America,  and  everywhere— when  freemen  have 
agreed  to  stop  fighting  and  settle  differences  fair¬ 
ly,  a  jury  of  their  peers  is  the  one  device  which 
has  always  been  employed. 

Mr.  Baer,  Mr.  Olyphant,  and  every  big  and  lit¬ 
tle  monopolist  in  that  region,  will  instantly 
prompt  their  lawyers,  their  lackeys,  and  their 
newspaper  writers  to  shout  Socialism!  Anar¬ 
chy  ! !  Trade-Unionism ! ! !  But  never  mind  their 
shouting.  Jury  trial  is  as  old  as  the  ages.  Every 
jury  called  to  pass  upon  anthracite  mining  claims 
should  be  composed  of  (1)  coal  land  owners,  (2) 
mining  operators,  (3)  coal  miners,  and  (4)  disin¬ 
terested  citizens  of  the  county.  Every  jury  thus 
composed  will  know  how  to  bring  out  all  needful 
testimony  as  to  facts ;  and  not  a  question  as  to  the 
price  or  the  equitable  boundaries  of  a  mining 
claim— for  a  large  plant  or  a  small  one— but  can 
be  decided  intelligently  and  fairly.  And  when 
such  a  jury  of  twelve  franchised  freemen  render 
a  unanimous  verdict,  the  Judge  or  the  Sheriff  of 
the  County,  the  Governor  of  the  State,  or  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  can  quickly  as- 


400 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


semble  any  needful  number  of  voluntary  fighters 
who  stand  ever  4  4  ready  at  the  call  of  the  laws  to 
fly  to  the  standard  of  the  law,  ’  ’  in  defense  of  our 
ancient  right  of  trial  by  jury. 

We  need  not  bother  about  disturbing  surface, 
or  farm-land,  titles  in  that  unhappy  country  at 
present. 

That  reform  can  wait ! 

What  the  anthracite  region  needs— what  the 
Nation  needs— is  to  now  settle  this  trouble-breed¬ 
ing  question  of  mining  monopoly  through  sense¬ 
less  land  titles,  and  through  monopoly  control 
of  transportation  facilities.  Missouri  has  already 
drawn  the  distinction  between  farm  lands  and  un¬ 
derlying  mining  claims ;  and  every  State  Legisla¬ 
ture  will  be  ready  to  follow  the  lead  if  we  point 
the  way  by  settling  the  anthracite  mining  problem 
logically,  justly,  and  in  accordance  with  American 
precedents. 

Let  Pennsylvania  make  this  needed  change  in 
her  mining  laws,  and  within  a  few  months  there¬ 
after  the  entire  anthracite  region  will  become  a 
perfect  bee-hive  of  prosperous  industry.  For  she 
has  anthracite  coal  deposits  in  bounteous  plenty — 
most  of  them  lying  idle  and  unused.  There  are 
any  needful  number  of  independent  operators 
eager  to  buy  and  work  the  mines  upon  fair  terms ; 
there  is  already  a  surplus  of  sturdy  miners  and 
laborers  who  would  be  glad  of  the  opportunity  to 
dig  the  coal  at  the  rates  of  wages  fixed  by  our 
President’s  Commission;  there  are  coal-land 
owners  in  great  numbers  who  are  not ‘  1  insiders 9  9 
and  who  would  be  glad  to  sell  at  a  fair  market  val¬ 
uation  of  their  property;  and  obviously  there  is 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  401 

no  present  or  prospective  limit  to  the  insistent  de¬ 
mand  for  anthracite  coal.  All  along  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  we  gladly  pay  double  price  for  it  rather 
than  use  the  smoky  bituminous  coal  which  trebles 
the  work  of  house-keeping;  and  in  the  middle 
West  the  well-to-do  are  annually  increasing  their 
demands  for  it.  Nor  need  we  worry  ourselves  in 
the  least  about,  exhausting  the  supply.  For  long 
before  the  known  deposits  of  anthracite  have  been 
mined  and  burned,  Electricity — that  magic  trans¬ 
former  of  the  material  world — will  have  liberated 
us  from  the  whole  dangerous  and  dirty  business 
of  mining  and  burning  coal. 

The  truth  is  that  Pennsylvania— the  Meeting- 
House  of  the  Bevolution,  the  abiding-place  of  the 
peace-loving  and  industrious  Quakers  in  free 
America— is  once  more  at  the  post  of  Honor.  We 
have  sketched,  in  briefest  outline,  the  stirring  story 
of  what  she  was  and  what  she  did  in  the  form¬ 
ative  period  of  our  national  institutions.  We 
have  recalled  her  record-breaking  vote  for  invin¬ 
cible  and  dauntless  Jackson.  We  know  the  love 
and  loyalty  she  gave  to  level-headed  Lincoln.  We 
know  the  wonders  she  has  wrought  in  iron  and 
steel  manufacture,  in  railroad  building,  and  in 
proudly  leading  the  wav  towards  publicity  in  rail¬ 
road  finance.  We  have  lately  seen  her  amaze  the 
world  with  the  excellence  and  cheapness  of  her 
locomotives  and  her  bridges— produced  at  the 
highest  rates  of  wages  that  skilled  mechanics  any¬ 
where  have  ever  earned !  Knowing  these  things, 
I  scorn  the  thought  that  the  freemen  who  are  com¬ 
missioned  to  rule  the  proud  Keystone  State,  by 
majority  vote,  will  longer  submit  to  that  Quayism 


402  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

which  has  enabled  Carnegie  to  capitalize  Protec¬ 
tion  profits  into  his  hundreds  of  millions  of  first 
mortgage  gold  bonds ;  which  has  enabled  Rocke¬ 
feller  to  victimize  our  oil  producers  and  lay  heavy 
tribute  upon  every  consumer  of  oil  through  his 
absurd  monopoly  of  pipe-line  franchises;  and 
which  now  permits  Morgan  and  a  little  bunch  of 
impudent  and  tyrannous  coal-land  owners  to  lock 
up  Nature’s  bounty  in  anthracite,  to  force  wages 
down  to  a  standard  which  entails  child-slavery 
for  freemen’s  children,  and  then  to  dictate  the 
price  which  money-greed  sees  fit  to  exact  for  the 
fuel  of  our  firesides  and  our  factories. 

And  I  have  faith  that  enlightened  Pennsylvania 
will  quickly  see  her  golden  opportunity — will 
again  proudly  lead  the  van  in  giving  the  world  a 
practical  demonstration  of  legal  and  orderly 
methods  for  solving  the  whole  land  question.  For 
that  little  anthracite  region  is  a  world  within  it¬ 
self.  Right  there,  in  flagrant  contrast,  we  see  the 
extremes  of  bounteous  Nature  and  avaricious  Mo¬ 
nopoly  ;  of  advanced  Enlightenment  and  helpless 
Ignorance;  of  fearless  Liberty  and  soulless  Ty¬ 
ranny;  of  vast  Wealth  and  wretched  Poverty;  of 
combined  Capital  and  invincible  Labor ;  of 
dreamy  Socialism  and  desperate  Anarchy;  and 
better  than  all  else  besides,  we  have  lately  seen 
Law  and  Order  rise  superior  to  every  thought 
and  human  motive  there  actively  at  work. 

Now  instead  of  longer  bothering  our  heads 
with  Plato’s  ancient  dreams  of  “government 
ownership,  ’  ’  and  instead  of  turning  back  to  mon¬ 
archical  Europe  for  precedents,  in  the  name  of  Pa¬ 
triotism,  Courage  and  Common  Sense,  let  us  fol- 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  403 

low  the  beaten  track  of  legal,  orderly,  and  liberty- 
loving  American  precedent.  The  whole  trouble  is 
due  to  present  inequality  in  our  laws.  A  few  men 
have  been  permitted  to  monopolize  the  railroads. 
A  few  other  men  have  been  permitted  to  monopo¬ 
lize  the  coal  lands.  They  not  only  own  and  con¬ 
trol  the  mines  they  are  working,  but  we  have  fool¬ 
ishly  permitted  them  to  monopolize  and  hold  out 
of  use  vast  deposits  of  coal  which  other  men  are 
eager  and  ready  to  buy  and  work,  that  they  may 
supply  the  coal  which  the  public  demands.  The 
national  government  can  quickly  end  the  railroad 
monopoly,  by  simply  opening  their  books  and  re¬ 
quiring  that  every  shipper  shall  pay  the  same  pro 
rata  rates  for  transportation  from  the  mines  to 
the  markets.  The  Pennsylvania  legislature  can 
quickly  end  the  monopoly  of  the  coal  mines,  by 

simply  applying  the  ages-old  law  of  Eminent  Do¬ 
main. 

Legal  men  will  argue  that  this  law  applies  only 
where  private  property  is  taken  for  public  use. 
But  that  is  mere  technical  reasoning— not  at  all 
difficult  to  disprove.  When  a  landowner  is  re- 
quiied  to  sell  his  property  to  a  railroad  company 
for  right  of  way  or  terminal  yards,  the  transac¬ 
tion  is  in  fact  an  actual  transfer  of  land  from  one 
individual  to  another — for  in  the  eyes  of  the  law 
a  railroad  corporation  is  an  individual.  And  the 
law  of  Eminent  Domain  is  invoked  specifically  be¬ 
cause  the  public  welfare  demands  that  society  at 
large  shall  be  benefited  by  the  building  and  oper¬ 
ation  of  railroads.  In  like  manner,  the  public  wel¬ 
fare  now  sternly  demands  that  the  monopoly  of 


404  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

mining  deposits  shall  be  broken  up— that  society 
at  large  shall  be  benefited  by  opening  and  operat¬ 
ing  those  unused  coal  deposits. 

Thus  far  our  State  laws  have  practically  ig¬ 
nored  this  vital  truth.  But  we  can  ignore  it  no 
longer.  Increasing  population  and  the  rapid  de¬ 
velopment  of  our  railroad  systems  have  given  a 
market  value  to  every  mining  claim  and  every 
acre  of  tillable  soil  within  reach  of  transportation 
facilities.  And  the  point  which  I  wish  to  make 
perfectly  clear,  is  that,  following  legal  precedent, 
and  obeying  the  dictates  of  common  sense,  we  set¬ 
tled  that  last  bloody  quarrel  in  the  anthracite  re¬ 
gion  precisely  as  our  liberty-loving  ancestors 
solved  every  problem  of  granting  rights  of  way 
for  public  utilities.  That  is  to  say,  we  appointed 
a  Commission— a  disinterested  jury  of  enlight¬ 
ened  and  enfranchised  freemen ;  and  we  agreed  to 
abide  by  their  verdict.  Had  we  not  done  this,  the 
coal  mine  owners  and  the  coal  miners  would  have 
gone  on  fighting  each  other  savagely  through  a 
long  winter— with  results  to  society  at  large 
which  I  leave  imagination  to  picture ! 

The  solution  of  that  difficulty,  and  especially  the 
method  of  its  solution,  presents  a  timely  lesson 
in  free  government  to  which  I  now  challenge  the 
attention  of  all  thinking  men.  It  teaches  that  we 
must  appeal  to  reason  instead  of  to  force;  it 
teaches  that  right  is  stronger  than  might;  and  it 
demonstrates  conclusively  that  we  may  safely  in¬ 
voke  the  law  of  Eminent  Domain  and  the  ancient 
right  of  trial  by  jury  as  an  effective  means  of 
peaceably  and  justly  settling  every  difference  as 
to  property  rights  in  natural  opportunities. 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  405 

In  short,  the  higher  law  of  Nature  has  now 
taught  us,  through  troubled  experience,  that  the 
State  has  no  ethical  right  to  authorize  one  man, 
or  any  combination  of  men,  to  monopolize  and 
speculate  in  paper  titles  to  Nature’s  unused  boun¬ 
ty.  Mother  Earth  is  the  storehouse  from  which 
we  draw  every  needful  thing  that  man  uses.  No 
living  man  ever  gave  one  moment  of  labor  to  the 
creation  or  production  of  the  bounteous  riches 
which  she  provides.  Every  letter  and  line  of  our 
legal  institutions  guarantees  equality  before  the 
law  in  the  enjoyment  of  Nature’s  bounty.  That 
fact  is  so  plain  that  nothing  short  of  crass  ignor¬ 
ance  or  contemptible  pocket-interest  will  ever 
dare  to  dispute  it.  The  coal  strike,  and  especially 
the  means  employed  for  settling  it,  has  now 
opened  everybody’s  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  pub¬ 
lic  has  a  vital  and  abiding  interest  in  those  an¬ 
thracite  coal  beds.  Since  earliest  times,  “whereof 
the  memory  of  man  runneth  not  to  the  contrary,” 
the  law  of  Eminent  Domain  has  been  the  means 
whereby  the  public  protects  its  rights  against  the 
avarice  of  individuals.  We  have  repudiated,  and 
we  refuse  to  tolerate  the  idea,  that  our  govern¬ 
ment  shall  own  the  coal  mines.  We  have  no  inten¬ 
tion  of  permitting  the  government  to  go  into  the 
coal-mining  business— Because  that  is  centraliza¬ 
tion  ;  it  is  paternalism ;  and  it  is  wholly  un-Ameri¬ 
can.  We  have  no  desire  to  deprive  any  land  own¬ 
er  of  his  just  rights.  We  mean  that  every  man 
shall  be  paid  a  fair  price  for  his  property — as 
our  Constitution  specifically  guarantees.  And  our 
independent  coal-mine  operators  are  so  well-off 
and  can  command  so  much  cash  capital,  that  we 


406 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


are  under  no  necessity  for  issuing  government 
bonds  to  aid  them  in  buying  idle  and  unused  coal 
lands— as  Britain  is  now  doing  to  aid  Irish  farm¬ 
ers  in  buying  their  farm  lands. 

What  we  all  want,  is  more  coal.  The  coal  is 
there  in  bounteous  plenty.  Millions  of  capital 
and  little  armies  of  men  are  ready  to  mine  it  upon 
fair  terms.  Every  possible  difference  as  to  the 
boundaries  and  the  price  of  the  properties,  the 
hours  of  labor,  the  rates  of  wages,  and  the  charges 
for  transportation— all  these  questions  can  be 
quickly  settled  if  the  parties  to  each  agreement 
will  simply  be  frank  and  fair  with  each  other.  And 
in  the  absence  of  that  frankness  and  fairness,  our 
government  can  perform  its  whole  duty  by  step¬ 
ping-in  with  statute  law  to  say:  You  must  be 
fair ;  you  must  act  upon  the  principle  of  equality 
before  the  law,  which  our  Declaration  of  Inde¬ 
pendence  declares ;  you  must  permit  these  sturdy 
miners  to  produce  all  the  coal  that  the  people 
want  and  need ;  you  must  have  done  with  this  in¬ 
sufferable  system  of  gratifying  the  greed  of  a  few 
at  the  expense  of  the  many ;  you  must  consent  to 
the  rule  which  permits  producers  and  consumers 
to  freely  trade  with  each  other  without  the  in¬ 
tolerable  interference  of  self-seeking  politicians 
of  whom  Matt  Quay  is  a  born  leader  and  perfect 
type. 

And  if  proud  Pennsylvania— the  Keystone 
State— will  do  her  duty  as  she  has  often  done  it 
before,  I  well  know  that  ambitious  Minnesota 
will  not  lag  far  behind  in  showing  us  just  how  she 
can  supply  American  freemen  with  all  the  iron 
ore  they  want  and  can  use — at  fair  terms  to  mine 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  407 

owners  and  at  fair  wages  to  ore  miners,  under 
conditions  of  free  and  equal  opportunity  before 
the  law.  For  Minnesota  understands,  quite  as 
well  as  Wall  Street,  that  the  unheard-of  valuation 
which  the  Steel  Trust  promoters  have  put  upon 
her  iron  mines,  is  due  solely  to  their  temporary 
monopoly.  They  have  captured  the  mines;  they 
have  bought  the  lake  steamers ;  they  own  the  lake 
shipyards;  they  control  the  railroads  through 
“community-of-interest;”  and  they  have  passed 
the  Dingley  bill  to  shut  out  Canadian  ores  and  all 
foreign  competitors  in  iron  and  steel. 

“But  Satan  now  is  wiser  than  of  yore, 

And  tempts  by  making  rich,  not  making  poor.  ’  ’ 

“In  vain  doth  Valor  bleed  while  avarice  and 
rapine  share  the  land. } 

Our  grandfathers  did  not  fight  the  battles  of  the 
Revolution,  and  our  fathers  did  not  fight  the  bat¬ 
tles  of  the  Union,  that  a  few  millionaires  might 
monopolize  our  stores  of  natural  wealth,  and  then 
arbitrarily  dictate  the  prices  which  consumers 
must  pay.  That  is  precisely  what  they  are  doing 
now.  And  there  we  find  bed-rock  for  the  exor¬ 
bitant  prices  and  fabulous  profits  of  the  coal 
Trust,  the  steel  Trust,  the  oil  Trust,  and  all  the 
lesser  Trusts— which  have  manufactured  Wall 
Street  millionaires  wholesale  since  the  passage  of 
the  Dingley  bill.  Monopoly  of  the  wealth  which 
Nature  gave  us  and  which  valor  won  for  us,  is  the 
foundation  of  the  whole  elaborate  scheme  of  com¬ 
bination  through  ‘  ‘  community-of-interest. ’  ’  And 
never  till  we  apply  the  time-honored  principle  of 
occupancy  and  use  can  we  hope  to  secure,  for  our- 


408 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


selves  and  our  children,  that  equality  before  the 
law,  that  fair  and  equal  opportunity  to  enjoy  Na¬ 
ture’s  bounty,  which  was  and  is  the  definite  object 
of  American  political  institutions. 

Nor  need  we  worry  ourselves  for  a  moment 
with  any  fear  that  Nature  has  not  provided 
enough  for  all  who  desire  to  mine  her  wealth. 
England  and  Ireland,  even  France  and  Germany, 
may  be  limited  in  their  stores  of  natural  wealth. 
But  with  us,  no  living  man  can  now  measure  the 
undeveloped  and  undiscovered  possibilities  of 
our  mineral  deposits.  Talking  recently  with  a 
man  of  the  first  order  of  intelligence — a  man  who 
has  spent  a  lifetime  in  the  iron  and  steel  business, 
said  he:  “  You  could  increase  the  American  pro¬ 
duction  of  iron  from  eighteen  million  to  sixty 
million  tons  per  annum,  and  after  that,  I  and 
other  men  would  still  have  ore,  coal  and  lime¬ 
stone  lands  to  sell— thousands  of  acres  of  them.” 
We  must  not  forget  that  a  very  few  years  ago  the 
Lake  Superior  iron  mines  were  unknown.  Two 
short  years  ago  Rockefeller  and  his  followers 
were  glad  to  sell  the  major  portion,  and  the  best, 
of  those  iron  ore  deposits  to  the  Steel  Trust  for 
something  less  than  $35,000,000.  Now  that  they 
have  combined  the  little  Connellsville  coke  fields 
with  the  control  of  our  present  transportation  fa¬ 
cilities,  the  Steel  Trust  promoters  tell  us  that 
their  iron  ore  and  coking  coal  deposits  are  worth 
Seven  Hundred  Millions  of  Dollars.  But  that  is 
because  they  are  playing  “legerdemain  tricks  on 
paper.”  This  time  the  paper  is  in  the  form  of 
first  mortgage  gold  bonds,  second  mortgage  gold 
bonds,  preferred  stock,  and  common  stock — in- 


MINE  MONOPOLY -LAND  SPECULATION.  409 

stead  of  state  bank  notes,  as  in  Jefferson’s  time. 
Mr.  Carnegie  has  told  ns— truthfully  this  time— 
that  “the  only  people  who  need  fear  the  Trusts, 
are  those  who  trust  them  *  *  *  *  those  foolish 
enough  to  go  into  them.”  Mr.  Carnegie,  Mr. 
Rockefeller,  and  Mr.  Morgan,  will  probably  have 
occasion  to  face  some  angry  interviews  with  stock¬ 
holders  who  have  been  induced  to  invest  their  sav¬ 
ings  in  Trust  stocks  at  the  valuations  which  Wall 
Street  has  seen  fit  to  put  upon  these  wonder-work¬ 
ing  combination  shares.  But  again  I  say,  this 
does  not  concern  us.  There  are  a  few  thousand 
lucky  Americans  who  have  surplus  money  enough 
to  “take  a  flyer”  in  these  unfamiliar  and  aston¬ 
ishing  ‘  ‘  industrials.  ’  ’  But  there  are  Eighty  Mil¬ 
lions  of  liberty-loving  Americans  who  know  in¬ 
stinctively— as  a  race  inheritance— that  the  most 
precious  possession  in  all  the  world  for  ourselves 
and  our  children,  is  a  familiar  Declaration  of  In¬ 
dependence,  a  certain  written  Constitution,  and  a 
specific  Homestead  Law.  Together,  they  guaran¬ 
tee  us  equality  before  the  law.  We  mean  to 
stand  by  that  Declaration,  that  Constitution,  and 
that  Homestead  Law.  We  have  no  intention— and 
we  hate  the  suggestion  of  a  desire— to  deprive  any 
man  of  his  property  “without  due  process  of 
law. 9 1  And  we  know  that  not  a  jot  or  tittle  of  that 
law  gives  any  one  man,  or  any  combination  of 
men,  the  right  to  monopolize— to  hold  out  of  use 
—the  opportunities  which  Nature  has  provided. 

Now  let  us  face  the  larger  land  question. 

After  centuries  of  hard  fighting  and  heroic 
struggle,  the  dauntless  patriots  of  proud  Ireland 
have  at  last  forced  the  landed  aristocrats  of  Great 


410  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

Britain  to  give  Irish  farmers  the  right  to  own,  in 
fee  simple,  the  lands  which  they  cultivate  and  live 
upon.  And  if  patriotic  Americans  desire  to  un¬ 
derstand  the  whole  Irish  land  question;  if  they 
wish  to  clearly  comprehend  the  inner  meaning  of 
that  new  bill  in  Parliament  which  offers  to  pledge 
the  high  credit  of  the  British  Empire  to  each  indi¬ 
vidual  Irish  farmer  who  desires  to  own  the  land 
which  he  cultivates — let  them  read  the  epoch-mak¬ 
ing  little  volume  by  T.  W.  Russell,  entitled  “Ire¬ 
land  and  the  Empire,  ’  ’  published  in  1901  by  E.  P. 
Dutton  &  Co.,  New  York.  From  the  preface  of 
this  little  book  I  take  this  speaking  extract: 

I  remember,  some  years  ago,  discussing  the  Irish  question 
with  some  distinguished  Americans  in  the  city  of  New  York.  I 
was,  of  course,  pleading  the  Unionist  cause.  But  I  shall  never 
forget  the  rebuke  courteously  administered  by  one  of  the  com¬ 
pany  who  bore  an  honored  name  in  American  history— ‘Mr.  Rus¬ 
sell,  he  said,  ‘  there  is  more  in  this  Irish  question  than  you  ap¬ 
pear  to  realize.  We  Americans  desire  the  question  settled,  not 
because  we  wish  harm  to  England,  but  in  order  that  American 
politics  may  be  clear  of  it.  It  complicates  everything  here  as  well 
as  in  Great  Britain.  So  please  hurry  up  and  solve  the  problem.  ’ 
This  is  quite  true.  By  our  methods  in  Ireland  we  have  sown 
dragons ’  teeth  in  every  quarter  of  the  world.  An  ‘understand¬ 
ing’  with  America— which  is  Mr.  Chamberlain’s  day-dream  in 
foreign  statesmanship— is  rendered  impossible  because  of  Car¬ 
lyle’s  ‘  idle  beggars  ’  dumped  down  in  the  States  by  tens  of  thou¬ 
sands,  owing  to  the  cruel  land  system  which  obtained  for  so  long 
in  Ireland. 

Certain  it  is  we  pay  dearly,  alike  in  meal  and  in  malt,  for 
our  method  of  governing  Ireland.  For  seventy  years  of  the  last 
century  Ireland  was  governed  wholly  in  the  interests  of  a  class. 
The  people  never  had  one  moment’s  consideration.  The  famine, 
one  of  those  mysterious  dispensations  by  which  Providence  as¬ 
serts  great  principles,  was  ruthlessly  used  in  the  same  interests. 
But  Nemesis,  long  on  the  road,  has  at  last  arrived.  The  people 


MINE  MONOPOLY-LAND  SPECULATION.  411 


are  now  supreme,  alike  in  Parliament  and  in  the  country.  House¬ 
hold  suffrage  and  government  in  the  interests  of  a  class  cannot 
permanently  exist  together.  The  whole  Irish  question  was  set¬ 
tled  when  the  vote  was  conferred,  in  the  expressive  language  of 
the  peasantry,  on  every  ‘smoke’— i.  e.,  upon  every  cabin  from 
which  the  smoke  of  the  turf  fire  ascends.  This  is  the  great  fact 
of  the  age.  This  is  what  in  the  end  will  settle  everything.  The 
two  races  which  inhabit  Ireland  will  not  for  ever  remain  apart, 
scowling  at  each  other  across  years  of  bitter  memories.  The 
Protestant  will  not  for  ever  stand  shivering  on  the  banks  of  the 
Boyne;  the  Eoman  Catholic  will  not  always  recall  the  penal  laws. 
No;  they  are  joining  hand  in  hand  even  now  for  common  objects. 
In  due  time  each  will  learn  that  much  can  be  conceded  with  little 
or  no  real  sacrifice.  And  when  this  lesson  has  been  truly  learned, 
Ireland  will  have  real  freedom,  England  will  be  released  from  the 
grip  of  a  nightmare,  and  the  Empire  will  be  really  united.  ’  * 

All  the  world  knows  that  what  made  America  a 
land  of  liberty  and  opportunity  for  the  oppressed 
of  all  nations,  was  our  broad  acres  and  fertile 
fields,  our  vast  extent  of  woodland  wealth,  and 
our  inexhaustible  stores  of  every  known  mineral. 
All  the  world  knows,  too,  that  good  crops  make 
good  times.  However  much  we  may  stimulate  in¬ 
ventions  and  Protect  manufactures,  without  the 
annual  recurrence  of  Mother  Earth’s  bounteous 
gifts  we  should  speedily  become  an  impoverished 
people.  A  few  of  us  have  also  taken  time  to  study 
the  history  of  land  titles  in  America— to  probe  to 
the  bottom  the  human  motives  and  the  historic 
records  which  lie  back  of  those  land  titles.  As 
fruit  of  our  study  and  honest  thinking,  we  have 
found  this  record  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  of 
our  race,  on  page  30  of  the  great  volume  of  1,343 
pages  entitled  ‘  ‘  The  Public  Domain, 9  9  by  Thomas 
Donaldson,  published  by  our  government  print¬ 
ing  office  in  1884 : 


412  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

After  Gilbert’s  and  Raleigh’s  attempt  to  locate  colonies  un¬ 
der  the  British  flag,  from  1583  to  1607,  there  were  but  few 
serious  efforts  by  the  English  at  colonization.  But  between  1607 
and  1733,  the  settlement  at  Jamestown  and  Oglethorpe’s  arrival 
in  Georgia,  a  period  of  126  years,  colonization  in  America  be¬ 
came  the  rage,  and  during  this  interval  the  thirteen  original  col¬ 
onies  were  settled : 

160/.  The  settlement  at  Jamestown,  Virginia. 

1609.  Discovery  and  exploration  of  the  Hudson  River,  as  far  as 
latitude  forty-three  degrees  north,  by  Henry  Hudson. 
1620.  Landing  of  the  Pilgrims  from  the  Mayflower  at  Plymouth, 
Massachusetts. 

1622.  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges  and  John  Mason  were  granted  pat¬ 
ent  for  New  Hampshire. 

1624.  First  city  in  Maine  chartered— Gorgiana,  now  York. 

1632.  Patent  of  Maryland  granted  by  Charles  I  to  Lord  Balti¬ 
more. 

1636.  Roger  Williams  founded  the  city  of  Providence,  Rhode  Is¬ 
land. 

1640.  Delaware  ceded  by  the  Indians  to  its  occupants;  1682,  sold 
by  the  Duke  of  York  to  William  Penn. 

1650.  First  permanent  settlement  of  Carolina  by  emigrants  from 
Virginia;  granted  to  Clarendon  and  others  by  Charles  II, 
and  in  1732  separated  into  North  and  South  Carolina. 
1664.  New  Jersey  granted  to  Lord  Berkeley  and  Sir  George  Car¬ 
teret. 

1681.  Pennsylvania  granted  to  William  Penn. 

1733.  Oglethorpe  arrived  in  Georgia.” 

Throughout  this  whole  period  of  Colonial  set¬ 
tlement,  occupancy  and  use  was  the  guiding  prin¬ 
ciple  of  all  land  grants.  That  is  to  say,  the  com¬ 
panies  were  chartered  because  the  individuals 
pledged  themselves  to  occupy  the  lands  in  person, 
and  title-deeds  were  granted  to  cultivators  be¬ 
cause  they  agreed  to  live  upon  and  use  the  lands. 
A.  few  titled  individuals,  close  to  the  British 
Kings,  acquired  monopoly  titles  to  vast  landed  es¬ 
tates;  but  in  the  main  the  sturdy  pioneers  who 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  413 


settled  America  gained  their  land  titles  through 
pledging  themselves  to  occupancy  and  use. 

George  Washington  and  George  Mason  were 
the  moving  spirits  in  the  famous  Ohio  Company, 
which  undertook  the  early  settlement  of  the  great 
middle  West— now  composed  of  the  States  of 
Kentucky,  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois.  Reviewing 
the  history  of  land  titles  in  Virginia  and  to  the 
West,  Mason  wrote  what  follows  (pages  396-7, 
Vol.  I— Rowland’s  biography) : 

‘  ‘  Pursuant  to  the  last  recited  clause,  Sec.  VII,  the  said  Com¬ 
pany  in  the  year  1616  (Sir  George  Yeardly  being  then  their 
Governor  in  Virginia)  ordained  and  ordered  that  50  acres  of 
land  ( note  the  limitation )  should  be  assigned  and  granted  to 
every  person  removing  himself  into  the  said  Colony  from  Great 
Britain  or  Ireland;  and  to  every  person  who  should  import  others 
50  acres  for  every  person  so  imported.  This  was  the  first  rise  of 
the  ancient  custom  of  granting  lands  upon  Importation  Rights, 
which  is  now  no  less  than  158  years  old.  It  appears  to  have  been 
interwoven  with  the  Constitution  of  the  Colony  from  its  first  set¬ 
tlement,  and  constantly  practiced  afterwards.  In  the  year  1621 
two  remarkable  instances  occur.  50,000  acres  were  granted  to 
one  Captn.  Newce,  for  the  importation  of  1,000  persons,  and 
sixty  young  maids,  being  brought  over  by  private  adventurers  to 
make  wives  for  the  planters ;  50  acres  of  land  for  each  was 
granted  to  the  persons  who  imported  them. 

“Mr.  Stith,  in  his  History  of  Virginia  (which  is  chiefly  ex¬ 
tracted  from  ancient  records),  mentioning  this  right  and  custom, 
had  good  reason  for  his  remark,  ‘  That  this  is  the  ancient,  legal, 
and  a  most  indisputable  method  of  granting  lands  in  Virginia.  ’ 

Turning  now  to  Blackstone’s  Commentaries, 
section  4  and  page  74  of  the  Introduction,  we  find 
this  record : 

“Plantations  or  colonies,  in  distant  countries,  are  either  such 
where  the  lands  are  claimed  by  right  of  occupancy  only ,  by  find¬ 
ing  them  desert  and  uncultivated ,  and  peopling  them  from  the 


414 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


mother-country;  or  where,  when  already  cultivated,  they  have 
been  either  gained  by  conquest,  or  ceded  to  us  by  treaties.  And 
both  these  rights  are  founded  upon  the  law  of  nature,  or  at  least 
upon  that  of  nations. * 7 

Further  along,  in  Book  1,  “Of  the  Bights  of 

Persons,  chapter  1,  page  101,  Blackstone  wrote 
this : 

“So  great  moreover  is  the  regard  of  the  law  for  private  prop¬ 
erty,  that  it  will  not  authorize  the  least  violation  of  it;  no,  not 
even  for  the  general  good  of  the  whole  community.  If  a' new 
road,  for  instance,  were  to  be  made  through  the  grounds  of  a 
private  person,  it  might  perhaps  be  extensively  beneficial  to  the 
public;  but  the  law  permits  no  man,  or  set  of  men,  to  do  this 
without  consent  of  the  owner  of  the  land.  In  vain  may  it  be 
urged,  that  the  good  of  the  individual  ought  to  yield  to  that  of 
the  community;  for  it  would  be  dangerous  to  allow  any  private 
man,  or  even  any  public  tribunal,  to  be  the  judge  of  this  com¬ 
mon  good,  and  to  decide  whether  it  be  expedient  or  no.  Besides, 
the  public  good  is  in  nothing  more  essentially  interested  than  in 
the  protection  of  every  individual ’s  private  rights,  as  modeled  by 
the  municipal  law.  In  this  and  similar  cases  the  legislature 
alone  can,  and  indeed  frequently  does,  interpose,  and  compel  the 
individual  to  acquiesce. 

“But  how  does  it  interpose  and  compel? 

“Not  by  absolutely  stripping  the  subject  of  his  property  in 
an  arbitrary  manner,  but  by  giving  him  a  full  indemnification 
and  equivalent  for  the  injury  thereby  sustained.  The  public  is 
now  considered  as  an  individual,  treating  with  an  individual  for 
an  exchange.  All  that  the  legislature  does,  is  to  oblige  the 

OWNER  TO  ALIENATE  HIS  POSSESSIONS  FOR  A  REASONABLE  PRICE* 
and  even  this  is  an  exertion  of  power  which  the  legislature  in¬ 
dulges  with  caution,  and  which  nothing  but  the  legislature 
can  perform. 7  7 

Having  read  thus  far,  we  can  understand  exact¬ 
ly  what  the  immortal  penman  of  American  insti¬ 
tutions  meant  when  he  wrote:  “The  land  belongs 
in  usufruct  to  the  living,  and  the  dead  have  no 


MINE  MONOPOLY-LAND  SPECULATION.  415 


power  over  it.”  Understanding  this,  we  can 
clearly  comprehend,  and  soon  apply,  all  else  that 
Jefferson  wrote  upon  the  subject  of  land  owner¬ 
ship  in  free  America.  But  it  is  needless  here  to 
go  into  all  that  thrilling,  purposeful,  and  clear- 
eyed  record  which  the  greatest  of  all  law  givers 
has  left  us,  upon  the  subject  of  land  legislation. 
It  is  all  written,  and  it  is  within  easy  reach  of 
those  who  want  Jefferson’s  warrant  for  what  I 
here  set  down.  It  is  only  necessary  to  quote 
these  brief  extracts  from  his  great  Ordinance  of 
1784-87,  for  “  the  government  of  the  Western  Ter¬ 
ritory”— the  Public  Domain  which  was  already 
ours  before  the  vast  Louisiana  Purchase : 

‘  ‘  No  man  shall  be  deprived  of  his  liberty  or  property,  but  by 
the  judgment  of  his  peers,  or  the  law  of  the  land;  and  should  the 
public  exigencies  make  it  necessary,  for  the  common  preservation, 
to  take  any  person’s  property,  or  to  demand  his  particular  serv¬ 
ices,  full  compensation  shall  be  made  for  the  same. 

“  Religion,  morality,  and  knowledge,  being  necessary  to  good 
government  and  the  happiness  of  mankind,  schools  and  the  means 
of  education  shall  be  forever  encouraged. 

‘  1  The  navigable  waters  leading  into  the  Mississippi  and  the  St. 
Lawrence,  and  the  carrying  places  between  the  same,  shall  be 
common  highways,  and  forever  free,  as  well  to  the  inhabitants  of 
the  said  territory,  as  to  the  citizens  of  the  United  States,  and 
those  of  any  other  States  that  may  be  admitted  into  the  con¬ 
federacy,  WITHOUT  ANY  TAX,  IMPOST,  OR  DUTY  THEREFOR.  ’  * 

Now  making  a  clean  jump  from  the  records  of 
those  heroic,  creative,  and  constructive  days  of  the 
Colonial  and  Revolutionary  eras,  let  us  see  how 
the  worthy  scions  of  the  Patriot  Fathers  wrote 
their  thought  and  purpose  into  the  immortal  stat¬ 
ute  providing  for  Homestead  settlement  upon  our 


416 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


exhaustless  Public  Domain.  And  let  us  not  fail  to 
remember— as  I  make  record  at  the  head  of  this 
chapter — that  the  Grand  Old  Party  of  the  Union 
fearlessly  and  purposefully  reaffirmed  the  Ameri¬ 
can  principle  of  occupancy  and  use  in  their  plat¬ 
form  of  1860 — upon  which  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
elected  President.  Turning  to  the  Homestead 
Law,  we  find  these  provisions : 

Sec.  212.  Every  person  who  is  the  head  of  a  family,  or  who 
has  arrived  at  the  age  of  21  years,  and  is  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States,  or  who  has  filed  his  declaration  to  become  such,  shall  be 
entitled  to  enter  one  quarter-section  (160  acres)  or  a  less  quan¬ 
tity  (NOT  MORE,  TAKE  note)  of  the  unappropriated  public  lands. 

Sec.  213.  The  person  applying  for  the  benefit  of  the  preceding 
section,  shall  make  affidavit  that  such  application  is  made  for  his 
exclusive  use  and  benefit,  and  that  his  entry  is  made  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  actual  settlement  and  cultivation ,  and  not,  either  directly 
or  indirectly,  for  the  use  or  benefit  of  any  other  person. 

Sec.  216.  No  certificate,  however,  shall  be  given,  or  patent  is¬ 
sued  therefor,  until  the  expiration  of  five  years  from  the  date  of 
such  entry ;  and  the  person  making  such  entry,  or  his  widow,  etc., 
proves  by  two  credible  witnesses  that  he,  she,  or  they  have  resided 
upon  or  cultivated  the  same  for  the  term  of  five  years  j  and  if 
any  witness  making  such  proof,  or  the  said  applicant  making 
such  affidavit  or  oath,  swears  falsely  as  to  any  material  matter 
contained  in  said  proof,  affidavits,  or  oaths,  the  said  false  swear¬ 
ing  being  wilful  and  corrupt,  he  shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  per¬ 
jury,  etc. 

Sec.  223.  If,  at  any  time  after  the  filing  of  the  affidavit,  as 
required  in  Sec.  213,  and  before  the  expiration  of  the  five  years 
mentioned  in  Sec.  213,  it  is  proved,  after  due  notice  to  the  set¬ 
tler,  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  register  of  the  land  office,  that  the 
person  having  filed  such  affidavit  has  actually  changed  his  resi¬ 
dence,  or  abandoned  the  land  for  more  than  six  months  at  any 

time,  then  and  in  that  event  the  land  so  entered  shall  revert  to 
the  Government.” 

I  have  never  yet  had  time  to  learn  the  name  of 
the  man  who  penned  that  Homestead  Act;  and  I 


MINE  MONOPOLY-LAND  SPECULATION.  417 

shall  be  greatly  indebted  to  any  one  who  will  give 
me  his  name,  with  authentic  proof  that  he  wrote 
it.  For  among  the  many  millionaires  of  free 
America  who  have  been  enriched  beyond  the 
dreams  of  desire,  I  know  that  we  shall  have  little 
difficulty  in  finding  one  who  would  account  it  a 
priceless  privilege  to  donate  all  the  money  needed 
to  erect  for  that  statesman  an  enduring  monument 
to  his  clear-eyed,  honest,  and  manly  intentions. 
For  any  freeman  who  loves  his  race,  and  who  has 
an  intellectual  appreciation  of  the  natural  rights 
of  the  producing  farmer,  cannot  fail  to  see  that 
the  man  who  penned  that  statute,  was  planning 
and  writing  to  protect  every  interest  and  hope  of 
father,  son,  and  heirs  among  individual  cultivat¬ 
ors  of  the  soil  who  produce  wealth  by  the  honest 
sweat  of  their  honest  brows. 

Now  what  we  need  at  the  post  of  Honor  in 
Washington— be  that  post  of  Honor  President, 
Secretary  of  the  Interior,  Commissioner  of  the 
Land  Office,  or  any  strong  member  of  either 
House  of  Congress— is  a  patriot  with  a  jaw-set 
determination  to  4  ‘  shed  the  last  drop  of  his 
blood”  in  giving  that  Homestead  Law  a  fair  en¬ 
forcement,  just  as  the  grand  soldier  Washington 
pledged  himself  to  the  Constitution.  The  lineal 
descendents  of  feudal  aristocrats  who  have  cap¬ 
tured  titles  to  tens  of  thousands  of  acres  of  our 
Public  Domain;  the  “soulless  corporations”  who 
now  hold  monopoly  control  of  nothing  less  than 
millions  of  acres  of  it ;  and  the  big  and  little  spec¬ 
ulators  who  have  invested  their  surplus  in  fraud¬ 
ulent  titles  to  smaller  tracts  which  aggregate  ad¬ 
ditional  millions  of  acres— these  are  the  men  who, 


418 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


since  the  Civil  War,  have  been  busy  in  the  shame¬ 
less  work  of  deliberately  evading  the  Homestead 
Law.  They  have  made  the  necessary  affidavits ; 
they  have  hired  scoundrels  to  personate  the  need¬ 
ful  credible  witnesses ;  ’  ’  and  they  have  wormed 
through  the  Land  Office  their  little  processions 
of  written  forms  which  have  come  out  in  the 
shape  of  title  deeds.  But  every  living  man  who 
knows  anything  about  our  Public  Domain,  and 
every  honest  public  servant  who  has  been  em¬ 
ployed  in  the  Land  Office  during  the  past  forty 
years — all  of  these  well  know  that,  for  every  acre 
deeded  to  an  honest  tiller  of  the  soil,  at  least  ten 
acres  have  been  deeded  to  corporations  and  lying 
pretenders  who  have  never  had  a  thought  of  cul¬ 
tivating  the  land.  The  sole  purpose  of  the  monop¬ 
olists  and  speculators  has  been,  and  is,  to  gamble 
in  the  land  titles— to  hold  the  best  lands  out  of 
use  until  crowding  population  forces  sturdy 
farmers  to  pay  them  a  monopoly  price  for  the 
privilege  of  going  to  work.  And  to  show  how  ac¬ 
tively  the  shameless  business  has  been  progress¬ 
ing— how  aggressively  it  is  still  going  on— I  need 
only  quote  the  following  extracts  from  an  urgent 
report  submitted  to  the  United  States  Senate  by 
the  Committee  on  Public  Lands  during  the  last 
week  of  February,  1903  : 

If  our  present  system  of  land  acts  is  continued  five  years 
longer,  the  entire  public  domain  suitable  for  settlement  will  be 
exhausted,  and  there  will  be  no  land  left  for  our  people  who  de¬ 
sire  to  make  homes  upon  it. 

‘During  the  first  ninety  days  of  the  present  fiscal  year  6,109,- 
000,  acres  of  government  land  were  filed  upon.  Should  this  in- 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  419 

creasing  ratio  be  maintained,  between  twenty-five  and  thirty 
million  acres  will  be  taken  from  the  public  domain  the  present 
fiscal  year. 

“Instead  of  following  the  injunctions  of  Jackson,  Lincoln, 
Grant,  Cleveland,  Harrison  and  Eoosevelt,  we  are  making  all  pos¬ 
sible  haste  under  our  present  most  unfortunate  land  acts  to  turn 
over  to  wealthy  men  and  corporations  this  rich  heritage  of  the 
people.  The  population  of  the  United  States,  to-day  eighty  mil¬ 
lions,  will  doubtless  reach  one  hundred  and  thirty  millions  in  the 
next  twenty-five  or  thirty  years. 

“Where  will  this  rapidly  increasing  population  find  homes 
upon  the  land  if  we  permit  the  public  domain  to  pass  into  the 
possession  of  men  seeking  to  own  and  control  immense  landed 
estates  ¥ 

“There  should  be  but  one  act  upon  our  statute  books  under 
which  public  land  can  be  acquired,  and  that  one  act  should  be  a 
genuine  homestead  act,  which  imposes  a  residence  of  five  years, 
and  continuous  cultivation  of  the  soil — an  act  having  no  commu¬ 
tation  provision  attached  to  it.  ” 

Commenting  on  this  report,  in  a  full-page  arti¬ 
cle  in  The  New  York  Herald  of  March  1,  1903, 
Mr.  J.  D.  Whelpley  wrote  what  follows.  The 
quotation  is  rather  long— but  it  is  not  nearly  long 
enough  for  land  reformers.  To  the  latter  I  sug¬ 
gest,  that  they  write  Mr.  Whelpley  personally,  in 
care  of  The  New  York  Herald,  asking  him  for  a 
complete  copy  of  his  full-page  article— or  another 
just  like  it.  Here  is  what  Mr.  Whelpley  says : 

“This  report  is  the  first  official  evidence  of  a  declaration  of 
open  war  which  has  been  made  between  those  variously  con¬ 
cerned  with  the  fate  of  the  remaining  public  lands. 

1 1  The  issue  is  well  defined  between  the  big  range  interests  of 
the  West,  identical  as  they  are  with  those  of  the  Beef  Trust, 
and  the  officers  of  the  United  States  Government,  who  are  de¬ 
termined  that  the  spirit  of  the  law  shall  prevail  and  that  the 
remaining  public  lands  shall  be  given  only  to  home  builders 
seeking  residence  thereupon. 

“Many  years  ago  Uncle  Sam  started  in  the  real  estate  busi- 


420 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


ness  with  a  landed  property  amounting  to  nearly  two  billion 
acres.  There  are  now  left  in  the  hands  of  the  Government  about 
500,000,000  acres  of  this  vast  empire.  Never  before  in  the  history 
of  the  Land  Office  has  the  absorption  of  this  land  by  private 
interests  been  so  rapid,  so  eager,  or  so  stupendous  in  the  acre¬ 
age  involved. 

The  laws  as  they  stand  to-day  were  drawn  during  an  era 
of  free  land  when  apparently  no  thought  had  to  be  given  for 
the  future.  That  future  has  come,  however,  quicker  than  was 
dreamed  of  by  the  builders  of  the  Homestead  act  of  1862;  and 
the  laws,  which  in  the  past  have  served  a  most  beneficent  pur¬ 
pose,  are  now  shown  by  the  government  records  and  by  the  reports 
of  government  agents  and  experts  to  be  but  a  great  open  door 
for  perjury,  fraud  and  theft  of  every  possible  description,  which 
in  any  way,  direct  or  indirect,  can  lead  to  the  obtaining  of  gov¬ 
ernment  land  by  private  or  corporate  interests. 

The  above  are  the  reasons  set  forth  by  a  majority  of  the 
Senate  Land  Committee  for  recommending  the  passage  of  what 
is  known  in  the  Senate  as  the  Quarles  bill,  and  in  the  House  as 
the  Powers  bill.  The  two  proposed  measures  are  identical.  They 
are  the  most  radical  land  legislation  which  has  been  proposed  in 
forty  years. 

The  effect  of  the  enactment  of  such  a  measure  would  be  to 
sweep  out  of  existence  the  present  methods  of  obtaining  govern¬ 
ment  land. 

These  are  now  being  used  to  build  up  great  grazing  ranches 
and  land  monopolies  throughout  the  western  States,  constructed 
by  their  owners  in  the  fear  and  realization  that  the  free  range  is 
becoming  exhausted;  and  the  time  is  near  at  hand  when  the 
people  of  the  United  States  will  demand  that  every  acre  of  public 
land  will  play  its  part  in  the  building  of  a  home  rather  than  as 
incidental  pasturage  for  a  cattle  baron’s  long-horned  steer. 

In  the  six  years  ending  July  1,  1903,  there  will  have  been  taken 
from  the  government,  under  various  allegedly  legal  forms,  about 
one  hundred  million  acres  of  land.  In  1898  a  little  more  than 
eight  million  acres  were  taken.  In  1899  a  little  more  than  nine 
million.  In  1900  began  the  agitation  for  restriction  of  the  land 
privilege. 

The  dictators  of  the  live  stock  ranges  realized  the  probable 
results  of  this  agitation,  and  counted  it  as  an  inevitable  event  of 
the  near  future  that  they  should  be  either  ousted  from  the  free 


MINE  MONOPOLY- LAND  SPECULATION.  421 


range  they  now  hold  as  private  property,  or  else  will  be  com¬ 
pelled  to  pay  toll  to  the  people  and  give  some  reckoning  of  their 
use  of  this  valuable  public  property. 

“Under  the  lax  administration  of  imperfect  laws,  it  is  easy 
enough  for  those  who  so  desire  to  extend  their  holdings  of  gov¬ 
ernment  land  almost  without  limit;  and  in  the  year  1900  opera¬ 
tions  began  upon  the  gigantic  scale  which  has  since  aroused  the 
fear  and  indignation  of  those  charged  with  the  honest  adminis¬ 
tration  of  the  law,  and  those  who  have  looked  upon  the  economic 
value  of  the  remaining  public  land  as  one  of  the  great  national 
resources  in  times  of  stress,  either  industrial  or  social. 

“Nearly  fourteen  million  acres  of  land  were  taken  in  1900 
from  the  public  domain,  a  jump  of  fifty  per  cent,  over  the  figures 
of  the  year  before.  In  1901  nearly  sixteen  million  acres  so  disap¬ 
peared  from  the  government  maps.  In  1902  nearly  twenty  million 
acres  was  the  grand  total  shown  in  the  Land  Commissioner ’s  re¬ 
port,  and  1903  promises  to  make  a  new  record,  with  an  absorp¬ 
tion  between  thirty  and  thirty-five  million  acres  of  land. 

“In  the  eighties,  when  the  Land  Oflice  made  its  great  record 
in  caring  for  home  seekers,  the  population  of  a  State  or  Terri¬ 
tory  increased  in  direct  ratio  to  the  number  of  land  claims  filed. 

“A  curious  feature  of  the  present  land  operations  of  the 
United  States  government  is,  that  not  only  has  there  been  no 
increase  of  population  noticeable  in  the  States  absorbing  the 
largest  amount  of  government  land,  but  it  is  a  fact  that  in  many 
localities  where  the  acreage  disposed  of  has  reached  a  stupen¬ 
dous  total,  there  has  been  an  actual  decrease  of  the  agricultural 
population.  Men  have  been  driven  from  their  homes  to  make 
room  for  a  few  range  cattle  or  sheep. 

“Western  members  of  Congress  whose  political  and  financial 
interests  are  intimately  entwined  with  those  of  the  great  range 
industries,  were  alarmed  at  the  encouragement  given  to  the  forces 
rapidly  coming  together  to  take  the  exclusive  control  of  the  great 
range  States  from  the  hands  of  those  who  had  been  for  years 
farming  out  this  control  to  the  benefit  of  themselves  and  their 
friends. 

‘  ‘  They  set  to  work  vigorously  to  stifle  any  remedial  legisla¬ 
tion  which  might  be  suggested,  and  to  further  cultivate  the  idea, 
which  generally  prevails  among  those  indifferent  to  the  matter, 
that  the  men  who  live  upon  the  public  lands  know  best  how  they 
should  be  administered. 


422 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


1 1  The  present  Quarles-Powers  bill  dies  with  the  expiration  of 
the  Fifty-seventh  Congress.  It  will  be  leintroduced  next  winter. 
Sufficient  progress  has  been  made  this  year  to  show  that  the 
demand  that  the  public  lands  should  be  saved  for  the  home 
builders,  is  strong  enough  to  check  any  legislation  in  an  opposite 
direction.  *  * 

I  have  no  personal  acquaintance  or  relationship 
with  Mr.  Whelpley,  or  with  any  member  of  the 
Senate  Committee  on  Public  Lands  who  made  the 
report  upon  which  his  notable  article  was  based. 
But  I  can  tell  them  each  and  all,  as  the  result  of 
full  twenty  years  of  intent  and  absorbing  study  of 
the  literature  of  the  land  question,  at  home  and 
abroad,  that  every  man  of  them  can  be  sure  of 
winning  enduring  honor  if  he  will  simply  follow, 
with  purposeful  energy,  the  native  instinct  which 
has  prompted  him  to  uphold  and  defend  the  spirit 
and  purpose  of  our  priceless  Homestead  Law. 

For  in  that  statute  we  see  the  moving  force 
which  formed  the  great  party  of  Freedom ;  which 
nominated  Fremont,  the  brilliant  soldier  and 
pioneer;  which  elected  Lincoln  the  Liberator; 
which  put  down  the  rebellion  of  the  slave-owners ; 
which  proclaimed  anew,  as  Jefferson  planned, 
that 4 ‘  there  shall  be  neither  slavery  nor  involun¬ 
tary  servitude  in  the  said  territory ;  ’ ’  and  which 
re-affirmed,  in  language  so  specific  and  clear  that 
no  hellish  cunning  can  longer  evade  it,  that  every 
acre  of  our  vast  Public  Domain  should  be  re¬ 
served  for  the  actual  settlement  and  cultivation 
of  American  freemen  and  their  families. 

In  the  generation  which  has  lived  since  that 
statute  was  enacted,  the  land-grabbers  have  been 
so  busy  with  their  shameless  work  that  the  major 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  423 

portion  of  our  vast  Public  Domain  lias  been  plas¬ 
tered  over  with  mere  paper  titles.  But  happily, 
a  free  press  can  render  such  efforts  idle. 
Thinking  freemen,  who  know  how  to  hold  them¬ 
selves,  as  well  as  how  to  fight,  are  not  to  be  denied 
the  substance  of  things.  We  know  what  our 
fathers  fought  for-— and  now  we  mean  to  have  it! 
For  instead  of  being  ruled  by  landed  aristocrats, 
as  all  Europe  has  been  ruled  for  ages  past,  we 
rule  ourselves  by  majority  vote.  And  we  have 
fought  for  and  control  the  votes ! 

There  was  a  time  in  this  country,  little  more 
than  a  generation  ago,  when  men  seeking  work 
could  always  find  it ;  when  the  pauperism  that  we 
suffer  from  to-day  did  not  exist ;  when  child-slav¬ 
ery  was  a  thing  unthinkable;  when  wages  were 
steady  and  sure,  as  well  as  high— and  a  vast  Pub¬ 
lic  Domain ,  offering  opportunity  to  every  man 
who  would  voluntarily  select  to  work  upon  it,  was 
the  obvious  explanation: 

“Come  along,  come  along,  make  no  delay; 

Come  from  every  nation,  come  from  every  way; 

Our  lands  they  are  broad  enough,  so  have  no  alarm, 

Eor  Uncle  Sam  is  rich  enough  to  give  you  all  a  farm.  ’  1 

— A  familiar  song  before  the  War. 

Our  broad  acres  and  fertile  fields,  our  vast  for¬ 
ests,  and  our  inexhaustible  stores  of  useful  min¬ 
erals— all  these  are  still  here.  They  lie  fallow 
and  undisturbed,  with  the  exception  of  a  portion 
which  even  now  is  small  as  compared  with  possi¬ 
bilities  of  the  whole.  But  wherever  one  goes  he 
will  find  a  land-speculator  with  a  paper  title  to 
every  square  foot  of  vacant  and  unused  land 
worth  owning.  Everywhere  he  will  find  the 


424 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


agents  and  promoters  of  a  4  ‘  community-of-inter- 
est  ’ ?  monopoly  of  land  in  which  thousands  of  in¬ 
dividuals— from  widows  and  orphans  to  gigantic 
corporations— are  striving  to  participate.  And 
without  regard  to  location  of  the  land,  or  condi¬ 
tion  in  life  of  the  owner,  all  alike  are  inspired  by 
a  common  interest  and  a  single  aim :  To  hold  for 
a  rise,  regardless  of  consequences  to  society  at 
large .  This,  with  Protection  and  Panic,  gives  the 
complete  explanation  of  the  pauperism  and  child- 
slavery  which  have  so  recently  come  to  curse  us : 
The  land-grabbers  and  vacant-land  speculators 
have  locked  up  natural  opportunities ;  the  Protec¬ 
tion  schemers  have  maintained  a  tariff  wall  with¬ 
in  which  they  have  enriched  themselves  by  taxing 
the  people  through  exorbitant  prices  for  practi¬ 
cally  everything  we  use  and  consume ;  and  Panic, 
that  dread  scourge  of  ring-rule  and  delusion,  has 
come  periodically  to  plunge  millions  of  freemen 
into  a  misery  and  servitude  which  numbers  its 
helpless  victims  by  tens  of  thousands  in  every 
passing  year. 

This  infamy  must  and  shall  be  ended ! 

And  to  end  it,  we  need  only  appeal  to  that  Man¬ 
ly  Courage  and  Common  Sense  which  our 
Fathers  bred  into  us. 

Throughout  all  recorded  history  strong  men, 
thinking  only  of  self,  have  relied  upon  land  mo¬ 
nopoly  as  the  basis  of  their  power.  Trace  back  the 
record  of  every  King  who  has  ruled  over  a  peo¬ 
ple,  and  you  will  never  fail  to  find  that  he  claimed 
title  to  every  square  foot  of  land  in  his  dominions. 
All  feudal  history  is  a  mere  record  of  how  Land 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  425 

Lords  proclaimed  their  land  titles ;  then  formed  a 
community-of-interest  ’  ’  combination  with  Kings 
Dukes,  Princes,  Barons  and  Sir  Knights;  and 
then  marshaled  their  armies  of  Embattled  Farm¬ 
ers  on  the  border-line  to  bid  defiance  to  invaders. 
But  in  the  course  of  time,  and  after  centuries  of 
conflict,  the  men  who  did  both  the  fighting  and  the 
work  learned  the  fine  art  of  intelligently  direct¬ 
ing  their  combined  power. 

Oliver  Cromwell  was  a  country  gentleman  and 
a  fanner.  He  felt  and  saw  the  evils  that  the  free¬ 
men  and  farmers  of  his  time  suffered— and  he 

UNSHEATHED  THE  SWORD  IN  DEFENSE  OF  THEIR  JUST 

rights  !  Being1  botli  honest  and  able,  he  quickly 
rose  to  supreme  command.  He  led  his  invincible 
Ironsides  to  successive  victories;  he  beheaded  a 
King  for  high  crimes  against  the  people ;  as  Pro¬ 
tector  of  the  Commonwealth  he  spurned  the  title 
of  King;  arid  writing  the  proudest  page  in  Brit¬ 
ain’s  constitutional  history,  he  fought,  and  ruled, 
and  lived,  and  died,  in  honest  advocacy  of  the 
rights  of  the  sturdy  tillers  of  the  soil — who  make 
possible  the  productive  work  of  all  other  men,  no 
matter  what  their  calling. 

And  brave  Cromwell  did  not  fight  in  vain ! 

For  while  he  lived  to  fight  out  his  immortal 
mission  at  home,  thousands  of  freemen  of  his  race 
sped  to  these  shores  to  re-enforce  their  brothers 
in  demanding  that  the  unused  and  uncultivated 
acres  of  a  whole  continent  must  be  reserved  for 
those  who  select  to  till  the  soil.  It  was  a  farmer’s 
son,  bred  of  Cromwell’s  stock,  and  inspired  by 
the  same  high  motives,  who  penned  the  Declara- 


426 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


tion  of  Independence,  who  re-wrote  the  Virginia 
Code  as  a  model  for  all  the  States,  who  worded 
the  essential  phrases  of  the  great  Ordinance  pro¬ 
viding  for  the  Homestead  settlement  of  our  West¬ 
ern  lands,  who  added  the  vast  Louisiana  Pur¬ 
chase  to  our  Public  Domain,  and  who,  time  and 
again,  throughout  his  imperishable  writings,  reit¬ 
erated  in  varying  phraseology  this  message  to  the 
fighting  freemen  of  his  race : 

‘ 1  Cultivators  of  the  earth  are  the  most  valuable  citizens.  They 
are  the  most  vigorous,  the  most  independent,  the  most  virtuous; 
and  they  are  tied  to  their  country  and  wedded  to  its  liberty  and 
interest  by  the  most  lasting  bonds.  ” 

This  was  the  teaching  which,  during  the  Revo¬ 
lution,  freed  us  from  the  curse  of  primogeniture 
and  entailed  estates  in  land.  And  that  same 
teaching  inspired  our  fathers  to  enact  the  Home¬ 
stead  Law — while  matchless  armies  of  American 
freemen  were  in  the  field  bravely  fighting  and 
bravely  dying  in  defense  of  our  institutions! 
During  the  Civil  War,  as  throughout  the  Revolu¬ 
tion,  they  thought  so  clearly,  they  fought  so  ef¬ 
fectively,  and  they  wrote  their  will  in  statutes  so 
specific  and  unmistakable,  that  no  sane  man  need 
now  be  led  astray.  In  the  Declaration  of  Inde¬ 
pendence  they  proclaimed  equality  before  the  law. 
In  the  Constitution  they  prescribed  the  system 
under  which  we  might  enjoy  that  equality.  And 
in  the  Homestead  Law  they  wrote  the  beginning 
and  the  end  of  that  rule  of  action  which  will  in¬ 
sure  every  freeman  an  equal  opportunity  to  own 
a  home  and  till  his  broad  acres,  free  from  the 
tribute  of  a  feudal  Land  Lord. 

Now  again  I  say,  let  us  be  sensible. 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  427 

Throughout,  weary  centuries  of  time  the  patient 
workers  of  all  Europe  have  been  fighting  for  the 
simple  right  to  own  and  cultivate  the  soil  in 
peace.  Our  forefathers  came  here  because  they 
were  weary  of  senseless  and  savage  conflict  over 
the  feudal  system  of  enslaving  other  men  to  the 
service  of  Land  Lords .  Time  and  again,  in  sea¬ 
son  and  out  of  season,  on  the  firing  line,  and  in 
every  House  of  Representatives,  our  ancestors 
have  proclaimed  that  the  man  who  cultivates  and 
uses  the  land  is  the  one  who  deserves,  desires, 
and,  in  the  end,  will  demand — by  the  might  of 
right— tha'c  protection  against  tyranny  and  land- 
monopoly  which  our  Government  has  been  insti¬ 
tuted  to  afford. 

Private  property  in  land  is  the  very  corner¬ 
stone— the  enduring  foundation— of  all  modern 
and  enlightened  civilization.  But  just  as  every 
manly  freeman  is  resolutely  determined  to  own  in 
fee  simple  his  home,  his  farm,  his  factory,  and  his 
mine;  so  every  enlightened  freeman  must  now 
awake  to  the  injustice  and  senseless  folly  of  per¬ 
mitting  monopolists  and  speculators  in  vacant 
and  unused  land  to  doggedly  stand  in  the  way  of 
those  who  are  ready  and  eager  to  use,  to  improve, 
and  to  produce  from  the  bounteous  opportunities 
which  Nature  has  provided. 

And  just  so  surely  as  private  property  in  land 
is  the  most  sacred  right  for  which  freemen  have 
been  fighting  throughout  all  time  gone  before,  so 
the  few  of  us  who  have  had  opportunity  for  study 
and  travel,  now  clearly  understand  that  the  tap¬ 
root  of  our  difficulties,  the  root  which  reaches 
deepest  into  Mother  Earth,  is  cunning  and  con- 


428  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

scienceless  evasion  of  that  priceless  Homestead 
Law.  For  we  know  that  if  our  precious  right  to 
own  the  land  we  use,  and  to  enjoy  the  full  fruits 
of  our  honest  labor,  is  to  be  preserved  for  our¬ 
selves  and  our  children,  we  must  now  concern 
ourselves  with  the  serious  business  of  protecting 
every  other  freeman  in  the  enjoyment  of  an  equal 
right  and  opportunity.  Fortunately,  also,  our  af¬ 
fairs  are  now  in  such  posture  that  there  is  no  need 
of  further  fighting,  no  need  of  panic,  and  no  need 
of  serious  trouble  in  setting  our  land  question 
squarely  to  rights. 

We  know  what  peasant-proprietorship  has 
done  for  proud  France  since  the  Revolution  of 
1789.  We  see  the  wonders  which  have  been 
wrought  within  a  generation  since  United  Ger¬ 
many  gave  her  farmers  the  right  to  own  the  acres 
which  they  till.  And,  as  I  write,  the  British  Par¬ 
liament  is  in  the  act  of  pledging  the  credit  of  the 
Empire  for  the  benefit  of  Irish  farmers  who  de¬ 
sire  to  own,  and  who  pledge  themselves  to  culti¬ 
vate,  the  lands  to  which  they  take  title.  In  the 
light  of  these  examples,  and  with  our  past  an  open 
book,  the  land  question  here  becomes  as  simple  as 
a  b  c.  The  first  step,  is  to  reserve  every  square 
foot  of  the  remnant  of  our  Public  Domain  for  the 
actual  use  of  freemen  who  pledge  themselves, 
without  qualification,  to  live  upon  and  cultivate  it. 
The  next  step,  is  to  challenge,  uncover,  and  de¬ 
stroy  every  title  to  any  portion  of  that  Public  Do¬ 
main  which  has  been  fraudulently  obtained — al¬ 
ways  EXCEPTING,  AND  ALWAYS  PROTECTING  AND  LE¬ 
GALLY  confirming,  the  titles  of  the  men  and  wom¬ 
en  who  are  now  living  upon  and  actually  using  it. 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  429 

That  will  open  np  the  whole  land  question. 

Instantly  every  dog-in-the-manger  who  is  spec¬ 
ulating  in  vacant  land  will  take  alarm.  He  will 
see  the  weakness  of  his  position;  he  will  know 
that  he  is  performing  no  useful  service  and  doing 
nothing  to  produce  wealth;  he  will  understand 
that  all  society  has  a  pocket-interest  in  ending  his 
damaging  monopoly;  and  he  will  be  quick  to 
reckon  the  insignificant  number  of  vacant  land 
speculators  in  comparison  with  the  millions  who 
have  built  upon  and  are  actually  using  the  lands 
to  which  they  rightly  hold  titles. 

And  like  the  coal  barons  and  the  iron-ore  mo¬ 
nopolists,  the  land  speculators  will  raise  a  mighty 
shout  of  Revolution !  Anarchy!!  Socialism!!! 
But  let  them  shout — and  the  louder  they  shout 
the  faster  the  good  work  of  education  will  go  for¬ 
ward  !  The  mortal  defect  in  our  State  land  laws 
is  the  legal  right  of  individuals  to  monopolize— 
to  hold  out  of  use— vacant  land  and  unused 
mineral  deposits.  That  defect  is  so  obvious — 
and  so  senseless— that  it  needs  but  to  be  pointed 
out.  And  the  true  way  to  point  it  out,  the  true 
line  of  conservative  and  definite  action  now,  is  to 

CONCENTRATE  ALL  OUR  EIRE  UPON  THE  INFAMOUS 
FRAUDS  WHEREBY  THE  PEOPLE  HAVE  BEEN  ROBBED 
OF  TITLE  DEEDS  TO  MILLIONS  UPON  MILLIONS  OF 
ACRES  OF  OUR  PRICELESS  AND  INEXHAUSTIBLE  PUB¬ 
LIC  domain.  The  Homestead  Law  is  there  to 
guide  us  on  our  way;  the  invincible  courage  and 
common  sense  of  the  American  people  will  protect 
every  man  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  just  rights; 
and  it  is  nothing  short  of  senseless  folly  to  sup¬ 
pose  that  disinterested  juries  of  enlightened 


430 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


American  freemen  can  not  rightly  decide  every 
question  as  to  what  public  lands  are  vacant,  and 
what  mines  lie  fallow  and  unused. 

“The  land  belongs  in  usufruct  to  the  living,  and  the  dead 
have  no  power  over  it. 

‘  ‘  Institutions  must  advance  and  keep  pace  with  the  times.  We 
might  as  well  require  a  man  to  wear  still  the  coat  which  fitted 
him  when  a  boy,  as  civilized  society  to  remain  ever  under  the 
regimen  of  their  barbarous  ancestors.  ” 

—Thomas  Jefferson. 

We  have  heard  much  in  recent  years  of  great 
landed  estates  in  Ireland,  in  England,  and 
throughout  all  Europe.  The  millions  of  down¬ 
trodden  and  oppressed  peoples  who  have  flocked 
to  our  shores  in  emigrant  ships  since  the  Civil 
War,  give  abundant  and  pathetic  testimony  to  the 
unspeakable  evils  of  landlord  tyranny  in  Europe. 
These  people  who  come  to  us  in  menacing  num¬ 
bers  are  not  skilled  artisans.  It  is  not  possible 
for  them  to  compete  in  our  machine  shops  and 
factories  with  the  puissant  race  of  young  and  in- 
tellectuallv  alert  mechanics  which  our  free  insti- 
tutions  have  bred  and  nurtured.  But  of  each  ship¬ 
load  of  European  emigrants  who  come,  probably 
seven  in  every  ten — men  and  women  alike — are 
enured  to  manual  labor.  Most  of  them  have  actu¬ 
ally  tilled  the  earth.  The  natural  and  immediate 
place  for  them  in  our  economy,  is  to  make  them 
farm  laborers— and  to  inspire  every  man  and  wo¬ 
man  among  them  with  the  high  hope  of  working 
hard,  working  early  and  late,  that  they  may  earn 
money  enough  to  become  proprietary  farmers. 

Therein  we  find  the  ennobling  thought  and 
central  purpose  of  the  great  men  who  founded 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  431 

our  institutions,  and  who  wrote  our  Emigration 
and  Homestead  Laws.  But  forgetful  of  that 
thought  and  purpose;  each  man  busy  with  his 
personal  concerns ;  and  most  of  us  indifferent  and 
neglectful  of  politics— we  have  simply  forgotten 
the  words  and  the  meaning  of  our  Homestead 
Law.  Thus,  and  thus  only,  have  schemers  and 
monopolists  been  permitted  to  capture  paper  ti¬ 
tles  to  nearly  the  whole  of  our  Public  Domain: — 
to  lock  up  natural  opportunities,  and  to  crowd  an 
increasing  population  into  fierce  and  pauperizing 
competition  for  the  chance  to  work  in  our  cities 
and  manufacturing  industries.  And  thus  it  has 
come  about  that,  in  free  America,  we  now  have 
landed  estates  which  number  millions  of  acres, 
while  down-trodden  Europe  numbers  her  landed 
estates  in  thousands  of  acres. 

4 'Know  the  Truth,  and  the  Truth  shall  make 
you  free. 7  7 

The  scientific,  the  economic,  the  political,  and 
the  spiritual  Truth  which  we  now  need  to  com¬ 
prehend,  is  that  the  one  and  only  form  of  wealth 
which  can  halt  and  hamper  progress— which  can 

PERMANENTLY  ENSLAVE  THE  MANY  TO  THE  SERVICE 

of  the  few — is  title-deeds  to  land  which  the  own¬ 
er  neither  rents,  uses,  nor  improves.  That  dog-in- 
the-manger  policy  has  been  making  trouble 
throughout  historic  time.  But  I  know  nothing  of 
the  race  of  freemen  who  bred  me,  if  I  be  mistaken 
in  saying  that  the  time  is  full  ripe  to  have  done 

with  SO  SENSELESS  AND  SINFUL  A  SYSTEM. 

We  are  a  thinking  people.  We  have  fought  our 
way  bravely  to  the  point  of  vantage  which  we  now 


432  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

occupy — Securely!  We  love  Liberty.  We  are  de¬ 
termined  that  we,  and  ours,  shall  enjoy  Oppor¬ 
tunity.  We  spurn  and  despise  every  suggestion 
that  we  desire  to  use  each  other  unfairly— much 
less  to  enslave  and  oppress  weaker  races,  at  home 
or  abroad.  We  stand  squarely  for  the  Declara¬ 
tion  of  Independence,  the  Constitution,  and  the 
Homestead  Law.  And  thus  we  stand,  because  we 
have  lived  to  learn  that  the  law  of  Eminent  Do¬ 
main,  with  its  peace-giving  right  of  trial  by  a 
jury  of  our  peers,  can  solve  every  problem  in  land 
ownership  which  now  confronts  us. 

“Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might.’ ’ 

— Abraham  Lincoln. 

Now  let  liberty-loving  and  time-honored  Penn¬ 
sylvania  show  the  world  what  equality  of  oppor¬ 
tunity  means  in  coal  mining.  Let  puissant  and  in¬ 
vincible  Minnesota  prove  that  she  knows  how  to 
regulate  every  freeman’s  natural  right  to  mine 
unused  deposits  of  iron  ore.  And  let  every  think¬ 
ing  American  be  ennobled  by  inwardly  pledging 
himself  to  a  resolute  determination  to  stand  true 
to  the  principles  of  OurHomesteadLaw :  Do  these 
things,  and  our  whole  land  question  will  settle 
itself  so  peacefully,  so  gradually,  so  prosperous¬ 
ly,  and  so  surely,  that  historians  of  the  future  will 
wonder  how  so  simple  a  problem  could  ever  have 
troubled  us.  For  in  comparison  with  the  millions 
who  occupy  and  use  the  lands  which  they  own,  the 
speculators  in  vacant  and  unused  natural  oppor¬ 
tunities  are  insignificant  in  numbers  and  power¬ 
less  when  confronted  by  reason  and  simple 
justice.  Instead  of  rendering  any  useful  service, 


mine  monopoly- land  speculation.  433 

they  are  actually  forestalling  the  production  of 
wealth.  Instead  of  investing  their  surplus  capital 
in  productive  industry  or  improvements,  they  are 
blindly  speculating  in  monopoly  rights  to  prevent 
other  men  from  going  to  work.  Instead  of  bene¬ 
fiting  society,  they  are  simply  halting  and  injur¬ 
ing  us— daily,  hourly,  and  immeasurably. 

Not  a  railroad  now  in  existence  but  would  be 
immensely  benefited  by  ending  so  senseless  a 
system.  Merchants,  bankers,  and  manufacturers 
would  profit  by  every  sale  of  vacant  land  to  an 
improving  owner.  Miners,  mechanics,  and  all 
working  men  would  enjoy  an  ever-widening  de¬ 
mand  for  productive  labor.  And  all  society  would 
prosper  inevitably  through  the  restoration  of  the 
natural,  legal,  and  time-honored  right  of  every 
American  to  acquire,  upon  fair  terms,  free  title 
to  vacant  land  for  productive  industry  and  useful 
improvement. 

It  is  silly  fear  or  selfish  folly  which  supposes 
that  there  will  be  any  danger  or  difficulty— any 
departure  from  world-tried  precedent— in  apply¬ 
ing  the  law  of  Eminent  Domain  to  vacant  and  un¬ 
used  lands.  Not  a  question  that  may  arise  be¬ 
tween  buyer  and  seller— as  to  occupancy,  as  to 
use,  as  to  intentions,  or  as  to  price— but  can  be 
quickly,  peaceably,  and  equitably  settled  by  a 
disinterested  jury  of  our  peers.  And  if  owner 
and  user  can  not  agree  as  to  terms,  then  indeed  it 
is  high  time  for  the  State  to  perform  its  natural 
function,  by  stepping  in  to  say:  You  must  be 
fair  and  reasonable  with  each  other;  you  must 
conform  to  that  equality  before  the  law  which  is 
plainly  written  in  our  institutions;  you  must  live 


434 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


up  to  our  guarantee  that  every  freeman  shall 
enjoy  his  right  to  “life,  liberty,  and  pursuit  of 
happiness’’  through  the  use  of  Mother  Earth’s 
bounty  in  natural  opportunities  for  productive 
labor. 

I  am  one  of  those  who  believe  that  this  re-as- 
sertion  of  the  American  principle  of  occupancy 
and  use,  as  the  basis  of  mining  and  land  titles, 
would  do  almost  more  than  all  things  else  to 
restore  the  happy  conditions  of  freedom,  oppor¬ 
tunity,  and  progressive  development  which  our 
fathers  enjoyed  in  fullest  measure  between  1789, 
when  Washington  went  to  the  Presidency,  and 
1861,  when  that  fatal  shot  at  Fort  Sumter 
doomed  us  to  the  awful  necessity  of  suppressing 
rebellion  against  “our  Union,  the  last  anchor  of 
our  hope.”  But  I  am  very  far  from  believing 
that  this  long  step  forward  would  prove  a  cure- 
all.  I  have  lived  to  learn  that  the  regeneration  of 
society  is  a  slow  and  gradual  work  of  time.  The 
elements  which  contribute  to  its  attainment  are  so 
many  and  so  varied  that  each  must  overlap  and 
interlace  all  the  others.  I  am  convinced  that  we 
can  never  hope  for  uniform  prosperity  and  the 
steady  growth  of  our  manufacturing  industries, 
until  we  attain,  in  practice,  that  ideal  of  free 
trade  with  all  the  world  which  even  believers  in 
Protection  admit  to  be  sound  in  logic.  Recurring 
paroxysms  of  financial  panic  are  certain  to  follow 
each  other  in  successive  periods  of  time,  until  we 
make  a  patriotic  business  of  enacting  into  statute 
law  the  plain  teaching  of  the  four  awful  panics 
we  have  suffered.  We  must  have  Publicity  in 
corporation  management  and  finance,  or  the  men 


MINE  MONOPOLY— LAND  SPECULATION.  435 

to  whom  the  people  have  granted  these  priceless 
franchises  will  make  never-ending  trouble  for  us. 
And  beyond  these  mere  fiscal  reforms,  the  armies 
of  the  Christian  world  must  go  on  doing  battle 
for  the  right  and  uplifting  the  moral  nature  of 
mankind— until  prison  bars  become  needless  for 
restraining  evil-doers !  That  good  time  is  yet  afar 
off.  But,  meanwhile,  the  reform  which  clears  the 
way  for  all  other  reforms — the  reform  which  will 
surely  give  us  the  full  fruits  of  every  other  move 
towards  the  right— is  to  liberate  Mother  Earth’s 
fertile  fields  and  exhaustless  treasures,  which 
now  lie  fallow  and  untouched.  When  that  step  is 
taken,  just  so  surely  as  the  spirit  of  progress  and 
invention  is  abroad,  just  so  surely  as  time  goes 
on,  we  may  look  for  the  early  dawn  of  a  day  when, 
in  the  language  of  the  late  David  A.  Wells, 
“human  poverty  will  mean,  more  distinctly  than 
ever  before,  physical  disability,  mental  inca¬ 
pacity,  unpardonable  viciousness,  or  laziness.  ’ 9 


FROM  JULIUS  CUESAR  TO  THOMAS 

JEFFERSON. 


“  Till  the  war-drum  throbbed  no  longer,  and  the  bat¬ 
tle  flags  were  furl’d 

In  the  Parliament  of  man,  the  Federation  of  the 
world. 

There  the  common  sense  of  most  shall  hold  a  fretful 
realm  in  awe, 

And  the  kindly  earth  shall  slumber  lapt  in  universal 
law.” 


— Alfred  Tennyson. 


.  My  creed  had  been  formed  on  unsheathing  the  sword  at  Lex¬ 
ington.  ’  ’  & 

“By  the  God  that  made  me,  I  will  cease  to  exist  before  I  yield 
to  a  connection  on  such  terms  as  the  British  Parliament  pro- 

POSG* 


Convinced  that  the  Republican  is  the  only  form  of  govern¬ 
ment  which  is  not  eternally  at  open  or  secret  war  with  the  rights 
of  mankind,  my  prayers  and  efforts  shall  be  cordially  distribSted 
to  the  support  of  that  we  have  so  happily  established.  *  ’ 


C  ( 


■  Hi9  -in^eed  animatinS  thought  that,  while  we  are  secur- 
mg  the  rights  of  ourselves  and  our  posterity,  we  are  pointing 
out  the  way  to  struggling  nations  who  wish,  like  us,  to  emerge 

/°?\itheir  tyf®1111168  also*  Heaven  help  their  struggles  and 
lead  them,  as  it  has  done  us,  triumphantly  through  them.  ’  * 

—  Thomas  Jefferson. 


Chapter  XII. 

Plain-spoken  and  courageous  old  Thomas  Car¬ 
lyle  never  rendered  mankind  a  nobler  service 
than  when  he  pointed  out  that  history  is  little 
moie  than  the  story  of  the  work  of  truly  great 
men.  It  was  thus  that  he  divined  the  inner  mean¬ 
ing  and  far-reaching  significance  of  the  splendid 

436 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON.  437 

work  that  Oliver  Cromwell  lived  to  do ;  and  it  was 
thus  that  he  restored  to  Cromwell,  and  to  all  man¬ 
kind,  the  written  records  of  the  ever-living  fact 
that  the  grim  old  Christian  soldier,  as  Protector 
of  the  Commonwealth,  did  all  that  mortal  man 
could  do,  in  his  time  and  circumstance,  to  destroy 
tyranny  and  to  preserve  and  extend  the  blessings 
of  constitutional  liberty. 

John  Hampden  was  there  to  aid  old  Oliver  man¬ 
fully  ;  J ohn  Milton  was  there  to  win  immortality 
with  a  pen  which  labored  incessantly  in  defense 
of  the  constitution ;  the  invincible  Ironsides  were 
there  to  fight  and  win  Liberty’s  battles;  and,  to¬ 
gether,  they  put  a  tyrant  King  to  the  block  to 
prove  that  they  knew  their  rights  and  dared 
maintain  them.  Verily,  it  was  Oliver  Cromwell 
who  wrote,  in  deeds  of  Christian  valor,  the 
proudest  page  in  the  history  of  England’s  age¬ 
long  defense  of  constitutional  liberty.  And  if 
thinking  Americans  will  now  delight  leisure 
hours  with  reading  Carlyle’s  “Life  and  Letters 
of  Oliver  Cromwell,”  and  Dr.  John  Fiske’s  “Be¬ 
ginnings  of  New  England,”  they  can  not  fail  to 
get  a  light  upon  American  ideals  of  government, 
in  contrast  with  the  Feudal  systems  of  all  Eu¬ 
rope,  which  will  make  all  our  present-day  prob¬ 
lems  simple  enough— as  indeed  they  are  simple, 
when  once  we  understand  them. 

In  the  first  chapter  of  Dr.  John  Fiske’s  im¬ 
perishable  little  book,  busy  Americans  will  find 
the  most  remarkable  piece  of  historical  writing 
that  has  ever  yet  been  penned.  For  there,  within 
the  compass  of  fifty  brief  pages,  this  unmatched 
and  peerless  interpreter  of  history  has  be- 


438 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


queatked  to  mankind  a  sketch  of  the  European 
past  which  reads  like  a  thrilling  story,  which 
embraces  every  significant  event,  and  which,  with 
the  clear  vision  of  a  modern  scientist,  links  the 
present  to  the  past  with  irresistible  logic  and 
sequence.  And  this  matchless  chapter  of  world- 
history  is  priceless  to  those  who  have  had  little 
time  for  reading  and  study,  because  it  provides 
nearly  all  the  information  needful  for  accurately 
measuring  the  grand  work  of  the  one  truly  great 
man  in  Roman  history. 

Julius  Caesar  conquered  Europe. 

It  is  in  the  Julian  Code,  and  in  the  records  of 
Caesar's  thought  and  work,  that  we  find  the  clear 
outlines  of  every  theory  and  system  of  govern¬ 
ment  that  has  swayed  the  scepter  of  power  in 
Europe  since  Caesar’s  time.  Napoleon  was 
shrewd  enough  to  see  this;  and  Napoleon’s 
utmost  aim,  the  last  limit  of  his  imagination,  was 
simply  to  duplicate  what  Caesar  had  already  done. 
But  he  failed  utterly  in  the  effort  to  establish  a 
second  world-Empire,  because  Napoleon’s  nar¬ 
row  and  brutal  selfishness  dwarfed  him  to  the 
stature  of  an  intellectual  pigmy  beside  Julius 
Caesar.  In  like  manner,  every  monarch  who  has 
ruled,  and  every  general  who  has  fought  since 
Rome  fell,  has  simply  tried  to  do  on  a  narrow 
national  scale  what  Caesar  did  magnificently  for 
the  Empire  which  conquered,  incorporated,  and 
ruled  the  European  world.  And  to-day  all  Eu¬ 
rope— excepting  glorious  little  Switzerland— is 
still  held  firmly  in  the  grip  of  kingly  and  aristo¬ 
cratic  rule,  solely  because  European  statesmen 
can  not  see  beyond  their  national  boundary  lines. 


FEOM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON. 


439 


France  is  indeed  a  Republic  in  name,  and  the 
ideals  of  that  great  people  are  essentially  and 
soundly  republican.  But  the  social  recognition 
of  the  titled  aristocracy,  and,  especially,  the 
highly-centralized  system  of  government  which 
Napoleon  fastened  upon  her,  deprives  the  French 
people  of  the  indispensable  right  of  local  self- 
government;  keeps  them  in  ignorance  of  true  re¬ 
publican  liberty;  and  hence,  in  effect,  the  system 
differs  little  from  the  liberalized  monarchies  and 
aristocracies  which  surround  and  menace  France. 
But  out  of  the  wreck  of  the  Revolution  of  1789, 
the  puissant  Gauls  firmly  grasped  peasant-pro¬ 
prietorship  of  the  land;  and  ever  since,  they 
have  grimly  held  fast  to  the  fundamental  right 
of  every  man  who  tills  the  soil  to  own  it,  in  fee 
simple,  for  the  benefit  of  himself  and  heirs.  On 
that  secure  foundation  they  are  steadily  nursing 
and  prudently  building  the  individual  citizen¬ 
ship  and  the  unconquerable  love  of  personal  lib¬ 
erty  which  are  destined  to  lead  the  van  of  modern 
Europe — as  the  Gauls  have  often  led  before! 

But  to  return  to  Julius  Caesar. 

Mr.  F.  Marion  Crawford  has  lately  published 
a  delightful  work,  entitled  “Ave  Roma  Immor- 
talis,,,  which  I  take  great  pleasure  in  commend¬ 
ing  to  my  readers.  Mr.  Crawford  evidently 
wrote  the  book  to  meet  the  requirements  of  thou¬ 
sands  of  well-to-do  Americans  who  annually 
visit  Rome,  and  who  desire  to  understand  the 
history  and  meaning  of  that  giantism  in  archi¬ 
tecture  of  which  Rome  is  the  repository  of  the 
past.  But  in  his  opening  chapter  Mr.  Crawford 
gives  us  a  philosophic  and  historical  picture  of 


440  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

splendor,  wealth  and  mad  extravagance  in 
ancient  Rome,  which  I  am  sure  it  will  profit 
Americans  of  the  living  generation  to  con-over 
and  think  about.  For  if  we  now  recall  the  rec¬ 
ord  of  how  the  nobles  of  ancient  Rome  combined 
war  and  politics,  and  wine  and  women,  in  the 
great  game  of  moving  armies  and  massing  mil¬ 
lions  wherewith  to  found  patrician  families— 
I  fancy  we  shall  soon  wake-up  to  the  meaning  of 
present  tendencies  in  the  United  States,  if  we  per¬ 
mit  them  to  go  on  unchecked. 

In  this  book  Mr.  Crawford  gives  us  the  follow¬ 
ing  graphic  sketch  of  Julius  Caesar's  work,  and 
its  phenomenal  influence  over  the  thought  of 
every  soldier  and  statesman  who  has  lived  in  Eu¬ 
rope  since  Caesar's  time: 

The  greatest  figure  in  all  history  suddenly  springs  out  of 
the  dim  chaos  and  shines  in  undying  glory,  the  figure  of  a  man 
so  great  that  the  office  he  held  means  Empire,  and  the  mere 
name  he  bore  means  Emperor  to-day  in  four  empires— Csesar, 
Kaiser,  Czar,  Kaisar— a  man  of  so  vast  power  that  the  history 
of  humanity  for  centuries  after  him  was  the  history  of  those 
who  were  chosen  to  fill  his  place— the  history  of  nearly  half  the 
twelve  centuries  foretold  by  the  augur  Attus,  from  Romulus, 
first  King,  to  Romulus  Augustulus,  last  Emperor.  He  was  a  man 
whose  deeds  and  laws  have  marked  out  the  life  of  the  world  even 
to  this  far  day.  Before  him  and  with  him  comes  Pompey,  with 
him  and  after  him  Mark  Antony,  next  to  him  in  line  and  great¬ 
ness,  Augustus— all  dwarfs  compared  with  him,  while  two  of 
them  are  failures  outright,  and  the  third  could  never  ha^e 
reached  power  but  in  his  steps. 

“In  that  long  tempest  of  parties  wherein  the  Republic  went 
down  forever,  it  is  hard  to  trace  the  truth,  or  number  the  slain, 
or  reckon  up  account  of  gain  or  loss.  But  when  Caesar  rises  in 
the  center  of  the  storm  the  end  is  sure  and  there  can  be  no 
other,  for  he  drives  it  before  him  like  a  captive  whirlwind,  to  do 
his  bidding  and  clear  the  earth  for  his  coming.  Other  men,  and 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON. 


441 


great  men,  too,  are  overwhelmed  by  it,  dashed  down  and 
stunned  out  of  all  sense  and  judgment,  to  be  lost  and  forgotten 
like  leaves  in  autumn,  whirled  away  before  the  gale. 

“Creation  presupposes  chaos,  and  it  is  the  divine  prerogative 
of  genius  to  evolve  order  from  confusion.  Julius  Caosar  found 
the  world  of  his  day  consisting  of  disordered  elements  of 
strength,  all  at  strife  with  each  other  in  a  central  turmoil, 
skirted  and  surrounded  by  the  relative  peace  of  an  ancient  and 
long  undisturbed  barbarism. 

‘ 1  It  was  out  of  these  elements  that  he  created  what  has  be¬ 
come  modern  Europe,  and  the  direction  which  he  gave  to  the 
evolution  of  mankind  has  never  wholly  changed  since  his  day. 
Of  all  great  conquerors  he  was  the  least  cruel,  for  he  never 
sacrificed  human  life  without  the  direct  intention  of  benefiting 
mankind  by  an  increased  social  stability.  Of  all  great  law¬ 
givers,  he  was  the  most  wise  and  just,  and  the  truths  he  set 
down  in  the  Julian  Code  are  the  foundation  of  modern  justice. 
Of  all  great  men  who  have  leaped  upon  the  world  as  upon  an  un¬ 
broken  horse,  who  have  guided  it  with  relentless  hands,  and 
ridden  it  breathless  to  the  goal  of  glory,  Cassar  is  the  only  one 
who  turned  the  race  into  the  track  of  civilization  and,  dying, 
left  mankind  a  future  in  the  memory  of  his  past.  He  is  the 
one  great  man  of  all,  without  whom  it  is  impossible  to  imagine 
history.  We  cannot  take  him  away  and  yet  leave  anything  of 
what  we  have.  The  world  could  have  been  as  it  is  without 
Alexander,  without  Charlemagne,  without  Napoleon;  it  could 
not  have  been  the  world  we  know  without  Caius  Julius  CaBsar.  ” 

Instantly  the  practical  man  will  ask,  If  Caesar’s 
work  was  so  supremely  great,  why  did  it  end  in 
such  awful  disaster?  The  answer  is  simple 
enough.  Jesus  Christ  was  born  forty  years  after 
Caesar  was  assassinated.  That  event  not  only 
changed  the  whole  course  of  human  history,  but 
it  gave  us  a  new  political  philosophy  to  which 
the  Romans  were  strangers. 

The  nobles  who  foully  murdered  Caesar  knew 
little,  cared  less  about,  and  practiced  none  of  that 
philosophy  which  teaches  the  brotherhood  of 


442 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


man,  and  which,  in  political  affairs,  enjoins 
equality  before  the  law.  But  Caesar’s  work  plain¬ 
ly  shows  that  his  natural  genius  enabled  him  to 
divine  much  of  the  worldly  wisdom  of  present- 
day  Christian  philosophy.  For  the  true  secret  of 
his  power  and  unexampled  success,  is  to  be  found 
in  his  humanity,  his  generosity,  and  his  studied 
consideration  of  the  interests  and  natural  aspir¬ 
ations  of  others.  He  firmly  held  the  love  and 
loyalty  of  his  soldiers,  and  he  led  them  to  unex¬ 
ampled  victories,  because  he  was  quick  to  ex¬ 
tend  honest  recognition  and  generous  reward  to 
every  man  who  did  his  work  ably  and  with  suc¬ 
cess.  He  incorporated  conquered  peoples  into 
the  Empire  with  a  rapidity  unheard-of  in  history, 
because  he  promptly  recognized  and  honored 
their  natural  leaders,  who  could  be  trusted;  and 
he  invariably  gave  them  a  wiser,  juster,  and  hap¬ 
pier  rule  than  they  had  ever  known  before.  And 
to  the  whole  people  he  proved  himself  a  Grachus, 
for  with  nothing  less  than  lasting  title-deeds  to 
land,  he  forged  the  bonds  of  love  and  fellowship 
with  every  Roman  citizen  who  was  content  to  till 
the  soil. 

“Upon  what  meat  doth  this  our  Caesar  feed, 

That  he  has  grown  so  great  1” 


There  was  far  too  much  equality  before  the 
law— far  too  much  democracy— in  Caesar’s  sys¬ 
tem,  to  suit  the  tastes,  ambition,  and  philosophy 
of  his  pagan  rivals.  And  so,  in  true  heathen 
fashion,  they  murdered  him— in  *he  vain  hope 
that  they  might  be  rid  of  him. 

Now,  note  the  foresight  of  the  man. 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON.  443 

The  J ulian  Code  had  been  written,  and  Cassar ’s 
record  had  been  wrought  out  in  deeds  of  match¬ 
less  valor,  in  acts  of  unheard-of  generosity  and 
fairness  to  conquered  peoples,  and  in  utterly- 
fearless  disregard  of  revenge  upon  personal  riv¬ 
als.  Time  and  again  he  spurned  and  refused 
the  empty  title  of  King— asking  only  to  be  known 
as  Caesar.  In  his  will  he  bequeathed  all  his  wealth 
to  the  people — whom  he  loved,  and  whom  he  had 
served  to  the  last  limit  of  his  great  abilities.  For 
he  had  feasted  upon  all  that  wealth,  splendor, 
and  power  could  give;  and  he  had  brain  enough 
to  see  that  the  highest  satisfaction,  the  supremest 
pleasure,  and  the  noblest  reward  that  the  human 
mind  can  ever  know,  is  a  reasoning  and  conscious 
determination  to  do  all  that  mortal  power  can  do 
to  increase  the  happiness  of  all  mankind. 

And  when  Caesar  faced  the  final  accounting; 
when  he  measured  the  dangers  that  he  well  knew 
were  about  him ;  and  when,  in  the  light  of  his  life¬ 
long  and  heroic  experience,  he  deliberately  made 
ready  for  his  taking- off— what  then  did  he  do? 
He  selected  a  mere  youth  as  his  successor— a 
nephew  of  eighteen,  whose  breeding  he  knew  all 
about,  and  whose  mind  he  had  tutored  and 
trained.  And  he  selected  that  boy  in  preference 
to  many  able  men  whom  he  knew,  and  to  whom 
he  was  related  by  ties  of  blood-kinship,  solely 
because  life’s  lessons  had  taught  him  that  young 
men  of  brains  and  power,  in  the  vigor  of  physi¬ 
cal  growth  and  ambitious  manhood,  will  fight 
true  to  honest  ideals  and  convictions.  Let  them 
live  to  maturity;  let  them  battle  with  sordid  self¬ 
ishness  and  jealous  rivalry;  let  them  see  public 


444 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


characters  winning  wealth  and  power  through 
governmental  privilege  and  shameless  resort  to 
corrupt  practices ;  let  them,  in  short,  study  what 
we  see  about  us  daily  and  hourly— and  how  few, 
alas,  have  courage  enough  to  go  on  through  life 
fighting  true  to  conscience  and  principle ! 
Caesar  reasoned  that  he  could  trust  young  Augus¬ 
tus  to  carry  his  work  further  than  any  man  in 
Rome  whom  he  knew— and  he  reasoned  rightly. 
For  Augustus  had  so  much  of  the  old  man  in  him, 
physically  and  by  training,  that  he  lived  to  enact 
the  proudest  records  in  all  the  annals  of  kingly 
rule.  i ‘All  roads  lead  to  Rome,”  and  even  now 
thinking  travelers  linger  and  dwell  in  “the 
Eternal  City, ”  because,  during  sixty  years’ 
reign,  Augustus  made  Rome  a  city  of  material 
splendors,  magnificence,  and  power,  the  like  of 
which  mankind  has  never  known  in  this  or  any 
other  time. 

But,  alas,  great  Rome  fell! 

That  fact,  to  my  thinking,  makes  it  perfectly 
clear  that  Augustus,  and  all  the  Emperors  who 
followed  him,  were  intellectual  children  in  com¬ 
parison  with  the  genius  who  won  the  victories, 
wrote  the  laws,  and  founded  the  system  which 
dominated  Europe  and  made  Rome  the  greatest 
civil  and  military  power  of  all  history — an 
achievement  so.  grandly  great  that  to  this  late 
day  the  world  is  held  spell-bound  in  admiration 
of  its  laws,  its  system,  and  its  material  splen¬ 
dors. 

And  picture  what  might  have  happened  to 
change  the  course  of  history  had  great  Caesar 
ruled  in  Rome  when  the  Master  came  out  of 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON.  445 

Nazareth  to  teach  ns  the  duty  we  owe  to  others, 
as  Epicurus  and  those  before  him  had  already 
taught  the  duty  we  owe  to  ourselves.  Through 
nineteen  long  and  bloody  centuries  self-seekers 

strong  men  who  love  money  and  dominion 
over  others— have  been  halting,  holding  back, 
and  confusing  the  political  significance  of  the 
Master’s  teaching.  But  in  this  enlightened  age, 
standing  firmly  upon  the  high  points  of  vantage 
won  for  us  by  those  gone  before,  it  requires  little 
penetration  to  comprehend  that  the  lesson  of 
Roman  history  teaches  simply,  that  pagan  Caesar 
had  genius  enough  to  foresee  dimly,  but  with 
high  courage  of  conviction,  the  fundamental 
truths  which  our  institutions  proclaim,  namely: 
that  all  men  are  born  equal  before  the  law,  and 
that  they  are  endowed  by  Nature  with  full  right 
to  life,  liberty,  and  pursuit  of  happiness. 

“Know  the  Truth,  and  the  Truth  shall  make 
you  free.  ’ y 

Thinking  men  well  know  that  the  advent  of 
Christianity  has  changed  the  whole  course  of 
political  history ;  and  to  Dr.  John  Fiske  belongs 
the  imperishable  honor  of  having  penned  the 
most  scientific  and  complete  explanation  of  how 
and  why  it  has  done  its  work.  For  us  here,  it 
will  suffice  to  say  that  Thomas  Jefferson  towers 
majestically  as  a  law-giver  far  greater  than 
Caesar,  because  he  lived  in  an  age  which  enabled 
him  to  estimate  the  moral  teaching  of  the  Master 
at  its  full  worth  politically.  He  knew  and  clearly 
comprehended  every  thought  and  motive  that 
moved  Caesar  in  all  his  work;  and  beyond  that, 


446 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


he  had  the  genius,  the  high  courage,  and  the 
matchless  constructive  statesmanship  that  were 
needful— after  eighteen  centuries  of  experiment 
and  failure—  to  give  legal  and  positive  effect  to 
a  system  of  government  which  closely  conforms 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  brotherhood  of  man.  Equal¬ 
ity  before  the  law ;  absolute  freedom  in  religious 
thought  and  worship;  and  education  as  the  se¬ 
cure  basis  for  manhood  suffrage— these  were  the 
cardinal  principles  which  moved  him  in  all  his 
life-long  and  purposeful  work.  And  this  we 
know  from  the  simple  inscription  which  he 
penned  for  “a  small  granite  obelisk”  to  mark 
his  tomb,  “in  case  any  memorial  should  ever  be 
thought  of.  ” 


HERE  LIES  BURIED 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 

Author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 

Of  the  Statutes  of  Virginia  for  Religious  Freedom, 

And  Father  of  the  University  of  Virginia. 

I  shall  not  here  attempt  any  finely-phrased 
panegyric  of  Thomas  Jefferson.  That  is  a  loving 
task  which  some  genius  of  expression  will  per¬ 
form  in  the  future.  We  are  not  now  concerned 
with  fine  phrases.  We  are  immediately  con¬ 
cerned  with  the  practical  problems  of  every  day 
life.  The  serious  business  which  now  confronts 
us,  is  how  to  make  it  possible  to  earn  an  honest 
living  for  ourselves  and  our  families,  without 
this  haunting  fear  of  poverty,  panic,  and  de¬ 
pendence  upon  somebody’s  charity.  Uncertain 
wages  day  by  day,  for  full  ten  hours  of  hard 
work,  with  the  loss  of  a  job  ever  threatening; 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON.  447 

an  insecure  weekly  salary  paid  only  for  faithful 
service,  in  free  competition  with  all  comers;  an 
annual  crop  sold  to  brokers  who  represent  specu¬ 
lators  and  Trusts ;  a  mercantile,  manufacturing, 
or  mining  business  which  must  submit  to  the 
heavy  tribute  and  soulless  domination  of  combin¬ 
ations  and  railroads ;  an  income  from  honest  sav¬ 
ings  which  are  always  subject  to  the  dangerous 
manipulation  of  Wall  Street  promoters;  and  a 
set  of  self-seeking  politicians  who  torture  us 
with  senseless  threats  of  another  panic,  and 
whose  sole  stock  in  trade  is  boasts  of  prosperity 
and  “a  full  dinner  pail” — these  are  insecure  con¬ 
ditions  which  have  become  intolerable  to  an 
overwhelming  majority  of  intelligent  American 
freemen.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  if  I  set  down 
here,  in  chronological  order,  a  simple  record  of 
what  Thomas  Jefferson  actually  did  to  give  us 
liberty,  opportunity,  peace,  and  security  in  our 
daily  pursuits,  it  will  afford  an  accurate  measure 
of  the  man’s  true  greatness;  and  beyond  that, 
it  will  show  that  his  teaching  and  example  now 
offer  an  easy  solution  for  every  problem  which 
perplexes  us. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  historic  event  which 
shaped  the  course  of  his  native  State,  and  which 
gave  political  inspiration  and  direction  to  the 
future  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ¬ 
ence,  at  the  moment  he  entered  upon  his  serious 
life-work.  In  his  appreciative  biography,  pub¬ 
lished  in  1832,  B.  L.  Rayner  has  left  us  this  in¬ 
spiring  short  story: 

‘  ‘  Immediately  upon  leaving  college,  Mr.  Jefferson,  engaged 
in  the  study  of  law,  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Wythe.  Here, 


448 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


it  is  said,  fired  by  the  example  of  his  master,  he  performed  the 
whole  circuit  of  the  Civil  and  Common  Law;  exploring  every 
topic  with  precision,  and  fathoming  every  principle  to  the 
bottom.  Here,  also,  he  is  said  to  have  acquired  that  unrivaled 
facility,  neatness,  and  order  in  business,  which  gave  him,  in  effect, 
in  every  office  that  he  filled,  ‘the  hundred  hands  of  Briareus. ' 
With  such  a  guide,  in  a  school  of  such  exalted  and  searching 
discipline  as  that  of  the  Law,  all  the  rudiments  of  intellectual 
greatness  could  not  fail  of  being  stirred  into  action.  Aided 
by  the  propitious  circumstances  of  the  times,  they  exhibited  a 
rapid  and  portentous  development  in  the  man  who  was  destined 
to  humble  the  pride  of  hoary  legitimacy,  and  prostrate  its 
artificial  scaffolding  in  the  dust.  The  occasion  was  not  long 
wanting,  which  was  fitted  to  evoke  the  master-passion  of  his 
nature  in  bold  and  prominent  relief.  His  faculties  were  just 
fledging  into  manhood;  they  had  begun  to  assume  their  dis¬ 
tinctive  flight;  and  to  indicate  a  novel  and  illimitable  range. 
At  this  decisive  moment  an  accident  occurred  which  riveted  them 
to  their  meditated  sphere,  and  kindled  the  native  ardor  of  his 
genius  into  a  flame  of  fire.  It  was  the  celebrated  speech  of 
Patrick  Henry,  on  the  memorable  resolutions  of  1765,  against 
the  Stamp  Act.  Young  Jefferson  was  present  and  listened  to 
the  ‘bold,  grand,  and  overwhelming  eloquence ’  of  the  Orator 
of  Nature;  the  effect  of  which  seems  never  to  have  lost  its  sor¬ 
cery  over  his  mind.  More  than  fifty  years  afterwards,  he  re¬ 
verts  to  it  with  all  the  vividness  of  the  first  impression.  ‘He 
appeared  to  me,’  says  he,  ‘to  speak  as  Homer  wrote. ’  The 
resistance  to  the  last  resolution  was  ‘most  bloody;  ’  but  the 
genius  of  Henry  rose  with  the  pressure  of  the  occasion,  and 
descended  in  ‘  one  incessant  storm  of  lightning  and  thunder/ 
upon  his  opponents.  The  effect  was  indeed  tremendous;  it 
struck  even  that  veteran  and  dignified  assembly  aghast.  The 
resolutions  were  moved  by  Henry,  and  seconded  by  Mr.  John¬ 
ston,  a  member  from  the  Northern  Neck.  They  were  resisted 
by  the  whole  monarchical  body  of  the  House  of  Burgesses,  as 
a  matter  of  course ;  and,  besides,  they  were  deemed  so  ill- 
advised  in  point  of  time,  as  to  rally  in  opposition  to  them  all 
the  old  members,  including  such  men  as  Peyton  Bandolph, 
Wythe,  Pendleton,  Nicholas,  Bland,  etc.,  honest  patriots,  whose 
influence  in  the  House  had  till  then  been  unbroken.  ‘  But,  ’ 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON. 


449 


says  Jefferson,  ‘  torrents  of  sublime  eloquence  from  Henry, 
backed  by  the  solid  reasoning  of  Johnston,  prevailed.  The  last, 
however,  and  strongest  resolution,  was  carried  but  by  a  single 
vote.  The  debate  on  it  was  most  bloody.  I  was  then  but  a 
student,  and  stood  at  the  door  of  communication  between  the 
house  and  lobby  during  the  whole  debate  and  vote;  and  I  well 
remember  that,  after  the  numbers  on  the  division  were  told  and 
declared  from  the  Chair,  Peyton  Randolph,  the  Attorney-Gen¬ 
eral,  came  out  at  the  door  where  I  was  standing,  and  said,  as  he 
entered  the  lobby,  “By  G — d,  I  would  have  given  500  guineas  for 
a  single  vote:  for  one  vote  would  have  divided  the  House,  and 
Robinson  was  in  the  chair,  who  he  knew  would  have  negatived 
the  resolution.  ’  ’  It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  magnificent  appeal, 
so  electrifying  to  his  impassioned  auditor,  that  Henry  is  said  to 
have  exclaimed,  in  a  voice  of  thunder,  and  with  the  look  of  a 
god,  “Cassar  had  his  Brutus — Charles  the  First  his  Cromwell — 
and  George  the  Third — [‘Treason/  cried  the  Speaker — 
‘treason,  treason/  echoed  from  every  part  of  the  House.  It 
was  one  of  those  trying  moments  which  is  decisive  of  char¬ 
acter.  Henry  faltered  not  an  instant;  but  rising  to  a  loftier 
attitude,  and  fixing  on  the  Speaker  an  eye  of  the  most  deter¬ 
mined  fire,  he  finished  his  sentence  with  the  firmest  emphasis,] 
may  profit  by  their  example.  If  this  be  treason,  make  the  most 
of  it/  ‘I  well  remember/  says  Jefferson,  ‘the  cry  of  treason, 
the  pause  of  Henry  at  the  name  of  George  the  Third,  and  the 
presence  of  mind  with  which  he  closed  his  sentence,  and  baffled 
the  vociferated  charge.  ’ 

“The  grandeur  of  that  scene,  and  the  triumphant  eclat  of 
Henry,  made  the  heart  of  young  Jefferson  ache  for  the  pro¬ 
pitious  moment  which  should  enroll  him  among  the  champions 
of  persecuted  humanity.  Then  was  realized  that  burning  vision 
of  his  fancy,  which,  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  amidst  the  crown¬ 
ing  hilarities  of  the  chase,  had  pointed  his  aspirations  to  the 
more  solid  and  rational  exultation  which  awaits  *  the  honest 
advocate  of  his  country’s  rights.’  ” 


In  May,  1769,  Jefferson  took  his  seat  in  the 
Virginia  House  of  Burgesses,  and  the  first  act 
of  his  public  career  was  to  prepare  and  have  in¬ 
troduced  a  bill  “for  the  permission  of  the  emanci- 


450 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


pation  of  slaves.’ ’  Throughout  his  whole  life 
that  subject  engaged  his  earnest,  consistent,  and 
eloquent  advocacy.  In  my  chapter  on  Lincoln 
we  have  seen  something  of  what  he  felt  and 
thought  about  negro  slavery— the  twin  evil  of 
Protection;  and  in  Eayner’s  biography  we  find 
this  record  on  page  153 : 

“The  high  honor  of  having  set  the  example  in  the  magnani¬ 
mous  work  of  African  Abolition  (prohibiting  the  importation  of 
slaves  from  Africa),  belongs  clearly  and  absolutely  to  Amer¬ 
ica.  Virginia  was  the  first  sovereign  and  independent  State, 
herself  a  slave-holding  community,  which  renounced  the  nefari¬ 
ous  commerce.  She  preceded  Great  Britain  twenty-nine  years, 
and  the  other  principal  slave-dealing  powers  in  Europe,  except 
Denmark,  more  than  thirty-five  years;  and  among  the  multi¬ 
tude  of  statesmen  and  philanthropists  whose  praises  have  been 
heralded  through  the  universe,  and  deservedly  so,  for  their 
splendid  successes  in  this  species  of  legislation,  the  merit  of  pri¬ 
ority,  and  of  self-denying  patriotism,  attaches  irresistably  and 
incontestably  to  Mr.  Jefferson.  ” 

Early  in  1774  Jefferson  penned  that  immortal 
“Summary  View  of  the  Eights  of  British  Amer¬ 
ica,”  every  principle  of  which  he  afterwards  in¬ 
corporated  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Little  minds  and  carping  critics  have  been  very 
busy  over  the  chronological  fact  that  a  few  citi¬ 
zens  of  Mechlenburg  County,  North  Carolina, 
issued  a  similar  declaration  in  May,  1775;  that 
Mason’s  Virginia  Bill  of  Eights  was  adopted  in 
June,  1776;  and  that  many  of  the  familiar 
phrases  embodied  in  Jefferson’s  revolutionary 
document  can  be  traced  to  Locke’s  “Treatise  on 
Government,”  and  Aphra  Behn’s  tragi-comedy 
“The  Widow  Eanter,  or,  The  History  of  Bacon 
in  Virginia.”  But  if  men  of  sense  will  turn  to 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON. 


451 


the  closing  chapter  in  Volume  I  of  Moses  Coit 
Tyler’s  “Literary  History  of  the  American  Dev¬ 
olution,”  they  will  find  little  difficulty,  and  very 
much  pleasure,  in  learning  the  exact  degree  of 
originality  and  effective  power  in  the  immortal 
Declaration,  into  which  Jefferson  “poured  the 
soul  of  the  continent.’ 7 

The  extracts  below  I  take  from  the  Summary 
View,  which  was  addressed  directly  to  the  King 
of  Great  Britain: 

‘ 1  Our  ancestors,  before  their  emigration  to  America,  were 
the  free  inhabitants  of  the  British  dominions  in  Europe,  and 
possessed  a  right,  which  nature  has  given  to  all  men,  of  de¬ 
parting  from  the  country  in  which  chance,  not  choice,  has 
placed  them;  of  going  in  quest  of  new  habitations,  and  of 
there  establishing  new  societies,  under  such  laws  and  regula¬ 
tions  as  to  them  shall  seem  most  likely  to  promote  public  happi¬ 
ness.  That  their  Saxon  ancestors  had,  under  this  universal  law, 
in  like  manner  left  their  native  wilds  and  woods  in  the  North 
of  Europe;  had  possessed  themselves  of  the  Island  of  Britain, 
then  less  charged  with  inhabitants,  and  had  established  there 
that  system  of  laws  which  has  so  long  been  the  glory  and  pro¬ 
tection  of  that  country.  ” 

“From  the  nature  and  purpose  of  civil  institutions,  all  the 
lands  within  the  limits  which  any  particular  society  has  circum¬ 
scribed  around  itself,  are  assumed  by  that  society,  and  subject 
to  their  allottment;  this  may  be  done  by  themselves  assembled 
collectively,  or  by  their  Legislature,  to  whom  they  may  have 
delegated  sovereign  authority:  and,  if  they  are  allotted  in 
neither  of  these  ways,  each  individual  of  the  society  may  appro¬ 
priate  to  himself  such  lands  as  he  finds  vacant,  and  occupancy 
will  give  him  title. f* 

“Let  those  flatter  who  fear:  it  is  not  an  American  art.  To 
give  praise  where  it  is  not  due,  might  be  well  from  the  venal, 
but  would  ill  beseem  those  who  are  asserting  the  rights  of 
human  nature.  They  know,  and  will,  therefore,  say,  that  Kings 


452 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


are  the  servants,  not  the  proprietors  of  the  people.  Open  your 
breast,  Sire,  to  liberal  and  expanded  thought.  Let  not  the 
name  of  George  the  Third  be  a  blot  on  the  page  of  history. 
You  are  surrounded  by  British  counsellors;  but  remember  that 
they  are  parties.  You  have  no  ministers  for  American  affairs, 
because  you  have  none  taken  from  among  us,  nor  amenable  to 
the  laws  on  which  they  are  to  give  you  advice.  It  behooves  you, 
therefore,  to  think  and  to  act  for  yourself  and  your  people. 
The  great  principles  of  right  and  wrong  are  legible  to  every 
reader:  to  pursue  them  requires  not  the  aid  of  many  coun¬ 
sellors.  The  whole  art  of  government  consists  in  the  art  of 
being  honest.  Only  aim  to  do  your  duty,  and  mankind  will 
give  you  credit  where  you  fail.  No  longer  persevere  in  sacri¬ 
ficing  the  rights  of  one  part  of  the  empire  to  the  inordinate  de¬ 
sires  of  another;  but  deal  out  to  all  equal  and  impartial  right.” 

“The  God  who  gave  us  life,  gave  us  liberty  at  the  same 
time;  the  hand  of  force  may  destroy,  but  cannot  disjoin  them. 
This,  Sire,  is  our  last,  our  determined  resolution.” 

That  document,  and  a  score  or  more  of  like 
fiber  that  he  had  penned  since  1769,  resulted  in 
Jefferson’s  election  to  the  Continental  Congress, 
where  he  took  his  seat  on  June  21,  1775.  That 
was  already  an  assemblage  of  famous  men;  and 
J ohn  Adams,  of  Massachusetts,  tells  us  that  this 
new  member  from  Virginia  came  with  a  “reputa¬ 
tion  for  literature,  science,  and  a  happy  talent  of 
composition.  Writings  of  his  were  handed 
about,  remarkable  for  the  peculiar  felicity  of  ex¬ 
pression.”  A  year  later,  when  that  assembly  of 
law-abiding  and  liberty-loving  freemen  had 
brought  themselves  to  the  point  of  declaring  In¬ 
dependence,  it  is  small  wonder  that  Jefferson,  a 
trained  lawyer,  should  have  been  selected  to  write 
the  document.  Benjamin  Franklin  and  John 
Adams  were  put  upon  the  committee  with  him; 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON. 


453 


but  both  Franklin  and  Adams  were  quick  to  rec¬ 
ognize  the  wish  of  Congress,  and  they  promptly 
delegated  the  work  of  preparation  to  the  man 
who  had  proved  himself  the  matchless  penman 
of  the  Revolution. 

“Is  it,  indeed,  possible  for  us  Americans,  near  the  close  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  to  be  entirely  just  to  the  literary  quality  of 
this  most  monumental  document — this  much  belauded,  much  be- 
spouted,  much  be  flouted  document? — since,  in  order  to  be  so, 
we  need  to  rid  ourselves,  if  we  can,  of  the  obstreperous  memor¬ 
ies  of  a  life-time  of  Independence  Days,  and  to  unlink  and 
disperse  the  associations  which  have  somehow  confounded  Jeffer¬ 
son’s  masterpiece  with  the  rattle  of  fire-crackers,  with  the  flash 
and  the  sputter  of  burning  tar-barrels,  and  with  that  unreserved, 
that  gyratory  and  perspiratory,  eloquence  now  for  more  than  a 
hundred  years  consecrated  to  the  return  of  our  fateful  Fourth 
of  July.  Nothing  which  has  not  supreme  literary  merit  has 
ever  triumphantly  endured  such  an  ordeal,  or  ever  been  sub¬ 
jected  to  it. 

“No  man  can  adequately  explain  the  persistent  fascination 
which  this  state-paper  has  had,  and  which  it  still  has,  for  the 
American  people,  or  for  its  undiminished  power  over  them, 
without  taking  into  account  its  extraordinary  literary  merits — 
its  possession  of  the  witchery  of  true  substance  wedded  to  per¬ 
fect  form: — its  massiveness  and  incisiveness  of  thought,  its  art 
in  the  marshaling  of  topics  with  which  it  deals,  its  symmetry, 
its  energy,  the  definiteness  and  limpidity  of  its  statements,  its 
exquisite  diction — at  once  terse,  musical,  and  electrical;  and, 
as  an  essential  part  of  this  literary  outfit,  many  of  those 
spiritual  notes  which  can  attract  and  enthrall  our  hearts,— 
veneration  for  God,  veneration  for  man,  veneration  for  prin¬ 
ciple,  respect  for  public  opinion,  moral  earnestness,  moral  cour- 
age,  optimism,  a  stately  and  noble  pathos,  finally,  self-sacrificing 
devotion  to  a  cause  so  great  as  to  be  herein  identified1  with  the 
happiness,  not  of  one  people  only,  or  of  one  race  only,  but  of 
human  nature  itself. 

“Upon  the  whole,  this  is  the  most  commanding  and  the  most 
pathetic  utterance,  in  any  age,  in  any  language,  of  national 
grievances  and  of  national  purposes;  having  a  Demosthenic  mo- 


454 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


mentum  of  thought,  and  a  fervor  of  emotional  appeal  such  as 
Tyrtseus  might  have  put  into  his  war-songs.  Indeed,  the  Dec¬ 
laration  of  Independence  is  a  kind  of  war-song;  it  is  a  stately 
and  passionate  chant  of  human  freedom;  it  is  a  prose  lyric  of 
civil  and  military  heroism.  We  may  be  altogether  sure  that  no 
genuine  development  of  literary  taste  among  the  American 
people  in  any  period  of  our  future  history  can  result  in  serious 
misfortune  to  this  particular  specimen  of  American  literature. 1 7 

— Moses  Coit  Tyler. 

Immediately  after  tlie  adoption  of  the  Declara¬ 
tion,  Jefferson  notified  the  leaders  of  his  home 
constituents  that  he  desired  to  retire  from  Con¬ 
gress  and  accept  his  election  to  a  seat  in  the 
Virginia  Legislature.  But  again  they  elected  him 
for  another  term  in  the  Continental  Congress. 
Again  he  resigned !  The  reason  for  this  action  is 
clearly  explained  in  the  following  extracts  from 
the  written  record  which  he  has  left  us : 

1  1  The  spirit  of  the  times  may  alter,  will  alter.  Our  rulers 
will  become  corrupt,  our  people  careless.  A  single  zealot  may 
become  persecutor,  and  better  men  be  his  victims.  It  can 
never  be  too  often  repeated,  that  the  time  for  fixing  every 
essential  right,  on  a  legal  basis,  is  while  our  rulers  are  honest, 
and  ourselves  united.  Prom  the  conclusion  of  this  war  (of  the 
Kevolution)  we  shall  be  going  down  hill.  It  will  not  then  be 
necessary  to  resort  every  moment  to  the  people  for  support. 
They  will  be  forgotten,  therefore,  and  their  rights  disregarded. 
They  will  forget  themselves,  but  in  the  sole  faculty  of  making 
money,  and  will  never  think  of  uniting  to  effect  a  due  respect 
for  their  rights.  The  shackles,  therefore,  which  shall  not  be 
knocked  off  at  the  conclusion  of  the  war,  will  remain  on  us 
long,  will  be  made  heavier  and  heavier,  till  our  rights  shall  re¬ 
vive  or  expire  in  a  convulsion.  ’  ’ 

Leaving  Philadelphia  in  September,  1776,  he 
had  been  at  home  but  a  few  days  when  he  was 
notified  that,  in  conjunction  with  the  venerable 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON. 


455 


Benjamin  Franklin,  lie  had  been  appointed  a 
Commissioner  to  France,  for  the  vitally  impor¬ 
tant  business  of  negotiating  treaties  of  alliance 
and  commerce  with  that  government.  This  dis¬ 
tinguished  honor  he  also  declined,  explaining: 
“  I  saw  that  the  laboring  oar  was  really  at  home, 
where  much  was  to  be  done,  of  the  most  perma¬ 
nent  interest ,  in  new-modelling  our.  govern¬ 
ments.” 

Taking  his  seat  in  the  Virginia  Legislature,  on 
October  11,  1776,  he  obtained  leave  to  bring  in  a 
Bill  for  the  establishment  of  Courts  of  Justice, 
himself  being  appointed  chairman  of  the  com¬ 
mittee  in  charge.  He  drew  the  Ordinance,  unani¬ 
mously  adopted,  which  divided  the  State  into 
counties,  erected  three  distinct  grades  of  Courts 
—County,  Superior,  and  Supreme— carefully 
guarded  the  ancient  right  of  trial  by  jury  in  the 
Courts  of  Law,  and  otherwise  established  the 
legal  system  which  has  been  closely  followed  in 
practically  every  State  in  the  Union. 

Then  immediately  he  brought  in  his  famous 
Bill  for  the  Abolition  of  the  Law  of  Entails.  This 
was  a  bold  measure  in  the  Virginia  of  that  day, 
and  describing  the  situation  briefly  Rayner  tells 
us: 

‘ ‘In  the  earlier  times  of  the  Colony,  when  lands  were  to  be 
obtained  for  little  or  nothing,  certain  provident  individuals 
procured  large  grants;  and,  desirous  of  founding  great  families 
for  themselves,  settled  them  on  their  descendants  in  fee  tail. 
The  transmission  of  these  estates  from  generation  to  gener¬ 
ation,  in  the  same  name,  raised  up  a  distinct  set  of  families, 
who,  being  privileged  by  the  law,  in  the  perpetuation  of  their 
wealth,  were  thus  formed  into  the  Patrician  order,  distin¬ 
guished  by  the  splendor  and  luxury  of  their  establishments. 


456 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


This  order,  having  in  process  of  time,  engulfed  the  greater 
part  of  the  landed  property,  and  with  it,  the  political  power  of 
the  Province,  remained  stationary,  in  general,  on  the  grounds 
of  their  forefathers;  for  there  was  no  emigration  to  the  west¬ 
ward  in  those  days. '  ’ 


The  contest  over  the  Law  of  Entails  was  a  bit¬ 
ter  one,  but  J efferson  finally  carried  the  day ;  and 
thus,  he  says,  was  “broken-up  the  hereditary  and 
high-handed  aristocracy,  which,  by  accumulating 
immense  masses  of  property  in  single  lines  of 
family,  had  divided  our  country  into  two  distinct 
orders  of  nobles  and  plebeians.” 

Now,  if  living  Americans  with  heads  to  think, 
and  wills  to  do,  will  simply  make  a  serious  and 
orderly  business  of  learning  the  facts  as  to 
great  landed  estates  which  are  now  monopolized 
by  individuals,  and  little  groups  of  individuals,  in 
the  anthracite  region,  in  the  Lake  Superior  iron 
ore  region,  and  throughout  our  vast  Public  Do¬ 
main;  and  if  they  will  contemplate  the  familiar 
facts  as  to  other  “immense  masses  of  property 
held  by  single  families”  in  the  form  of  legisla¬ 
tive  franchises  for  railroads,  pipe  lines,  street 
railways,  and  other  public  utilities— then  I  think 
they  will  realize  the  significance  of  Jefferson’s 
work  back  in  those  early  days  of  Colonial  Vir¬ 
ginia.  And  instead  of  wasting  any  more  time 
and  effort  in  debating  visionary  schemes  of 
“government  ownership,”  the  thing  needful  is, 
that  we  now  proceed  with  our  political  business 
precisely  as  Jefferson  and  his  followers  did 
identically  the  same  kind  of  work  in  their  day. 
Our  problems  loom  larger  in  money- value  than 
did  theirs;  we  must  deal  with  landed  estates 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON.  457 

which  run  into  millions  of  acres  instead  of  thou¬ 
sands  of  acres  as  in  Jefferson’s  time;  but  the 
principles  are  unchanged,  and  the  methods  of 
legal  procedure  are  identical.  We  can  break-up 
the  monopoly  of  our  high-handed  land  specu¬ 
lators  and  mining  aristocrats,  by  simply  apply¬ 
ing  the  law  of  Eminent  Domain  to  vacant  and 
unused  opportunities;  and  we  can  soon  end  the 
domination  of  a  few  families  over  our  railroads, 
pipe-lines,  and  other  public  utilities,  by  simply 
applying  the  well-tried  system  of  publicity  and 
national  supervision  which  has  solved  our  bank¬ 
ing  problem. 

“Follow  principle  and  the  knot  unties  it¬ 
self.  ”  — Thomas  Jefferson. 

The  next  heroic  task  to  which  Jefferson  ad¬ 
dressed  himself  was  that  of  re-writing  the  Code 
of  Virginia— to  the  end  that  every  trace  of  the 
aristocratic  and  Feudal  systems  of  Europe  might 
be  wiped  from  our  statute  laws.  This  great  work 
occupied  nearly  two  years  of  all  his  available 
time;  and  it  was  only  after  several  subsequent 
years  of  hard  fighting,  with  Mason  and  Madison 
as  his  chief  coadjutors,  that  they  were  able  to 
secure  the  enactment  of  the  main  feature  of  the 
new  and  essentially-republican  system.  But 
they  finally  triumphed;  and  thus  the  Virginia 
Code  became  the  one  model  which  was  closely 
followed  in  all  the  States. 

Beyond  the  repeal  of  the  Law  of  Entails,  to 
which  reference  has  been  made,  the  distinguish¬ 
ing  features  of  this  great  modern  code  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  law,  were:  (1)  the  abrogation  of  the  right 


458  JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 

of  primogeniture,  requiring  the  equal  division 
of  inheritances  among  children;  (2)  the  assertion 
of  the  right  of  expatriation,  prescribing  rules 
whereby  aliens  may  become  citizens;  (3)  the 
abolition  of  capital  punishment  in  all  cases  ex¬ 
cept  for  treason  and  murder,  and  the  formal  as¬ 
sertion  (for  the  first  time  in  legal  history)  of  the 
principle  that  reformation  of  the  offender  should 
be  the  object  of  all  discipline;  and  (4)  the  im¬ 
mortal  statute  establishing  freedom  of  religion 
upon  the  broadest  foundations. 

To  these  wide  departures  from  the  semi-bar¬ 
barous  system  of  laws  then  in  force  the  world 
over,  Jefferson  also  added  a  chapter  providing 
for  the  emancipation  of  all  slaves  born  after  the 
passage  of  the  act;  and  another  chapter  provid¬ 
ing  a  complete  system  of  public  education— ele¬ 
mentary  schools,  academies  or  colleges,  and 
universities.  The  emancipation  chapter  was  re¬ 
jected,  and  we  well  know  the  consequences  which 
followed.  The  statute  for  public  education  also 
failed  of  passage  at  the  time ;  but  gradually  the 
system  was  introduced  elsewhere,  particularly  in 
New  England;  and  as  new  States  were  added  to 
the  Union,  Jefferson’s  far-seeing  work  became 
the  very  basis  of  our  public  school  system. 

Historians  tell  us  a  great  deal  about  the  Jul¬ 
ian  Code,  and  in  all  reform  literature  the  Code 
of  Napoleon  is  constantly  heralded.  But  it  re¬ 
quires  no  prophetic  faculty  to  foresee  that  this 
J efferson  Code  is  now  destined  to  win  world-wide 
recognition  for  the  far-reaching  and  fundamental 
reforms  which  it  inaugurated— not  alone  in 
America,  but  throughout  all  Europe  as  well.  For 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON. 


459 


every  advance  in  governmental  science  that  has 
been  won  in  Europe  during  the  past  century  and 
a  quarter,  can  be  traced  directly  to  the  all-pervad¬ 
ing  work  of  this  greatest  of  law-givers. 

On  June  6,  1783,  Jefferson  was  again  elected 
to  the  Continental  Congress.  This  second  term 
he  distinguished  by  establishing  our  present 
monetary  system,  and  by  penning  the  original  Or¬ 
dinance  providing  for  the  Homestead  settle¬ 
ment  of  our  vast  Public  Domain.  Not  a  dime  or 
a  dollar  that  we  ever  handle  but  bears  the  stamp 
of  Jefferson’s  inventive  and  constructive  genius; 
and  not  a  title  deed  to  one  square  foot  of  land  in 
any  part  of  the  great  region  lying  North  and 
West  of  the  Ohio  River,  but  is  drawn  and  re¬ 
corded  as  he  planned  that  it  should  be. 

On  May  11,  1784,  Jefferson  accepted  his  com¬ 
mission  as  Ambassador  to  France,  to  succeed 
Benjamin  Franklin.  Then  began  that  memorable 
course  of  nearly  six  years  devoted  to  foreign 
studies  and  extensive  European  travel.  To  re¬ 
count  what  he  did,  what  he  wrote,  what  he  dis¬ 
covered,  and  what  he  sent  home  in  the  form  of 
seeds,  plants,  inventions,  and  available  scientific 
and  artistic  information,  would  require  a  book— 
a  book  which,  if  properly  done  by  an  author 
familiar  with  Europe,  must  become  a  little  classic 
in  the  literature  of  travel,  exploration,  and  per¬ 
sonal  experience.  I  shall  content  myself  here 
with  simply  referring  my  readers  to  his  letters 
of  that  and  subsequent  periods,  addressed  to  per¬ 
sonal  friends,  co-laborers  at  home,  members  of 
his  family,  and  persons  representing  every  grade 
of  intellectual  society.  These  can  be  found  in 


460 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


every  considerable  biography  of  him ;  and  where- 
ever  found  they  will  richly  repay  careful  read¬ 
ing,  because  of  the  wide  range  of  subjects  dis¬ 
cussed,  and  the  masterful  treatment  of  every 
topic.  Quotations  from  three  of  his  letters, 
written  at  different  dates,  will  answer  our  pres¬ 
ent  purpose— the  first  two  indicating  the  influ¬ 
ences  which  brought  on  the  French  Revolution  of 
1789,  and  the  last  indicating  Jefferson’s  estimate 
of  the  comparative  merits  of  American  and  Eu¬ 
ropean  institutions: 

1 1  The  American  Revolution  seems  first  to  have  awakened  the 
thinking  part  of  the  French  nation,  in  general,  from  the  sleep 
of  despotism  into  which  they  were  sunk.  The  officers,  too, 
who  had  been  to  America,  were  mostly  young  men,  less  shackled 
by  habit  and  prejudice,  and  more  ready  to  assent  to  the 
suggestions  of  common  sense,  and  feeling  of  common  rights, 
than  others.  They  came  back  to  France  with  new  ideas  and  im¬ 
pressions.  The  press,  notwithstanding  its  shackles,  began  to  dis¬ 
seminate  them;  conversation  assumed  new  freedoms;  politics 
became  the  theme  of  all  societies,  male  and  female;  and  a  very 
extensive  and  zealous  party  was  formed,  which  acquired  the 
appellation  of  the  Patriotic  party,  who,  sensible  of  the  abusive 
government  under  which  they  lived,  sighed  for  occasions  for 
reforming  it.  This  party  comprehended  all  the  honesty  of  the 
Kingdom,  sufficiently  at  leisure  to  think:  the  men  of  letters, 
the  easy  Bourgeois,  the  young  nobility,  partly  from  reflection, 
partly  from  mode;  for  these  sentiments  became  matter  of 
mode,  and,  as  such,  united  most  of  the  young  women  to  the 
party.  ’  * 

“But  he  (the  King)  had  a  Queen  of  absolute  sway  over  his 
weak  mind  and  timid  virtue,  and  of  a  character  the  reverse 
of  his  in  all  points.  This  angel,  as  gaudily  painted  in  the 
rhapsodies  of  Burke,  with  some  smartness  of  fancy,  but  no 
sound  sense,  was  proud,  disdainful  of  restraint,  indignant  at  all 
obstacles  to  her  will,  eager  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  and 
firm  enough  to  hold  to  her  desires,  or  perish  in  their  wreck. 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON. 


461 


Her  inordinate  gambling  and  dissipations,  with  those  of  the 
Count  d ’Artois,  and  others  of  her  clique,  had  been  a  sensible 
item  in  the  exhaustion  of  the  treasury,  which  called  into  action 
the  reforming  hand  of  the  nation;  and  her  opposition  to  it, 
her  inflexible  perverseness,  and  dauntless  spirit,  led  herself  to 
the  guillotine,  drew  the  King  on  with  her,  and  plunged  the 
world  into  crimes  and  calamities  which  will  forever  stain  the 
pages  of  modern  history.  I  have  ever  believed  that,  had  there 
been  no  Queen,  there  would  have  been  no  Revolution.  .  .  . 
I  should  have  shut  up  the  Queen  in  a  convent,  putting  harm 
out  of  her  power,  and  placed  the  King  in  his  station,  investing 
him  with  limited  powers,  which,  I  verily  believe,  he  would  have 
honestly  exercised,  according  to  the  measure  of  his  under¬ 
standing.  In  this  way,  no  void  would  have  been  created,  court¬ 
ing  the  usurpation  of  a  military  adventurer,  nor  occasion  given 
for  those  enormities  which  demoralized  the  nations  of  the 
world,  and  destroyed,  and  is  yet  to  destroy,  millions  and  mil¬ 
lions  of  its  inhabitants. 1 f 

1 1  Above  all  things,  I  am  astonished  at  some  people ’s  con¬ 
sidering  a  kingly  government  as  a  refuge.  Advise  such  to 
read  the  fable  of  the  frogs,  who  solicited  Jupiter  for  a  King. 
If  that  does  not  put  them  to  rights,  send  them  to  Europe,  to 
see  something  of  the  trappings  of  monarchy;  and  I  will  under¬ 
take  that  every  man  shall  go  back  thoroughly  cured.  If  all 
the  evils  which  can  arise  among  us,  from  the  republican  form 
of  government,  from  this  day  to  the  Day  of  Judgment,  could 
be  put  into  a  scale  against  what  this  country  (France)  suffers 
from  its  monarchical  form  in  a  week,  or  England  in  a  month, 
the  latter  would  preponderate.  Consider  the  contents  of  the 
Red  book  in  England,  or  the  Almanac  Boyale  of  France,  and 
say  what  a  people  gain  by  monarchy.  No  race  of  kings  has 
ever  presented  above  one  man  of  common  sense  in  twenty  gen¬ 
erations.  The  best  they  can  do  is,  to  leave  things  to  their  minis¬ 
ters;  and  what  are  their  ministers  but  a  committee  badly 
chosen?  If  the  King  ever  meddles,  it  is  to  do  harm. ” 

It  was  during  Jefferson’s  absence  in  France 
that  the  Constitution  was  adopted.  For  that 
reason  pocket-interest  politicians  and  shallow 


462 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


writers  upon  American  political  history  have 
spread  the  idea  that  he  had  no  part  in  shaping 
that  second  Magna  Charta  of  Anglo-Saxon  free¬ 
dom.  But  if  men  who  think— men  who  use  their 
own  heads  instead  of  lazily  following  the  lead  of 
other  people— will  read  Jefferson’s  numerous 
letters  from  Paris  before,  during,  and  after  the 
convention  in  Philadelphia  in  1787 ;  and  then  if 
they  will  study  the  record  of  his  relationship  to 
Madison  who  called  the  convention,  to  Washing¬ 
ton  who  presided  over  it,  and  to  Mason  and 
Henry  who  came  so  near  defeating  the  original 
Constitution  in  Virginia— I  think  they  will  have 
little  difficulty  in  understanding  that  Jefferson 
was  scrupulously  careful,  first,  to  make  his  posi¬ 
tion  perfectly  clear;  and  then,  with  purposeful 
intent,  held  himself  aloof  from  the  bitter  parti¬ 
sanship  of  the  contest  to  the  end  that,  at  the 
critical  stage  of  the  struggle,  he  might  throw  all 
his  influence  in  favor  of  the  policy  which  tri¬ 
umphed:  that  of  adopting  the  Constitution,  with 
the  pledge  that  it  should  be  amended.  Witness 
this  extract  from  one  of  his  letters  from  Paris : 

“The  operations  which  have  taken  place  in  America  lately, 
fill  me  with  pleasure.  In  the  first  place,  they  realize  the  con¬ 
fidence  I  had,  that,  whenever  our  affairs  go  obviously  wrong, 
the  good  sense  of  the  people  will  interpose  and  set  them  to 
rights. 

“The  example  of  changing  a  Constitution  by  assembling  the 
wise  men  of  the  State,  instead  of  assembling  armies,  will  be 
worth  as  much  to  the  world  as  the  former  examples  we  had 
given  them.  The  Constitution,  too,  which  was  the  result  of  our 
deliberations,  is  unquestionably  the  wisest  ever  yet  presented  to 
man;  and  some  of  the  accommodations  of  interest  which  it  has 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON. 


463 


adopted,  are  greatly  pleasing  to  me,  who  have  before  had  occa¬ 
sions  of  seeing  how  difficult  those  interests  were  to  accommo¬ 
date. 

“A  general  concurrence  of  opinion  seems  to  authorize  us  to 
say  it  has  some  defects.  I  am  one  of  those  who  think  it  a 
defect  that  the  important  rights,  not  placed  in  security  by  the 
frame  of  the  Constitution  itself,  were  not  explicitely  secured  by  a 
supplementary  declaration.  There  are  rights  which  it  is  useless 
to  surrender  to  the  government,  and  which  governments  have 
yet  always  been  fond  to  evade.  These  are  the  rights  of  thinking, 
and  publishing  our  thoughts  by  speaking  or  writing;  the  right 
of  free  commerce;  the  right  of  personal  freedom. 

“We  are  now  allowed  to  say,  such  a  declaration  of  rights, 
as  a  supplement  to  the  Constitution,  where  that  is  silent,  is 
wanting,  to  secure  us  in  these  points.  The  general  voice  has 
legitimated  this  objection.  ” 

Indeed,  present-day  thinkers  and  doers  need 
only  study  the  scattered  but  voluminous  records 
of  Federalist  criticism  and  frenzied  opposition  to 
Jefferson  to  see  that,  though  absent  in  France, 
he  was  clearly  recognized  as  the  real  leader  of 
the  anti-Federalist  forces.  And  he  undoubtedly 
came  home  with  resolute  purpose  to  lend  all  his 
commanding  influence  to  the  enactment  of  those 
ten  indispensable  amendments  which  were  added 
to  the  Constitution  in  1789-91.  It  is  needless  to 
give  details  here.  Samuel  Adams’  Tea  Party; 
Patrick  Henry’s  imperishable  oratory;  George 
Washington’s  generalship;  George  Mason’s 
Spartan  battles  for  equality  before  the  law; 
Jamies  Madison’s  clear-eyed,  systematic,  and 
purposeful  work;  and,  finally,  Jefferson’s  genius 
for  individual  liberty,  Jefferson’s  matchless 
faculty  for  forging  natural  rights  into  enduring 
statute  laws,  and  Jefferson’s  Csesar-like  leader¬ 
ship  in  political  warfare— these  were  the  forces 


464 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


which  gave  us  American  institutions  as  they 
exist.  Each  and  all  these  great  names  were  in¬ 
dispensable  to  success,  as  every  man  who  is  hon¬ 
ored  in  Revolutionary  history  was  necessary  to 
the  immortal  work  then  accomplished.  But  the 
time  has  now  come  when  living  Americans  need 
to  realize  that  Thomas  Jefferson  was  the  pre¬ 
siding  genius  of  law,  order,  leadership,  and  con¬ 
structive  writing,  throughout  the  whole  of  that 
resplendent  period  in  human  history;  and  with¬ 
out  the  potent  and  pervading  spell  of  his  influ¬ 
ence  over  Federalists,  anti-Federalists,  and 
strong  men  who  occupied  a  middle  ground,  the 
Constitution  could  not  have  survived  in  the  form 
which  has  made  it  the  Magna  Charta  of  American 
liberty  and  opportunity. 

In  Chapter  V  we  have  seen  what  occupied  his 
thought  and  time  and  patience  throughout  the 
trying  years  between  1790  and  1800,  while  he  was 
organizing  and  leading  the  great  party  of  the 
people.  We  know  the  immortal  message  that  he 
gave  mankind  from  the  Presidential  chair  when 
he  took  that  solemn  oath  to  serve  the  people— 
instead  of  ignobly  serving  self.  And  never  while 
time  lasts  can  history  overlook  his  unmatched 
and  peerless  diplomacy  in  sending  Monroe  to 
Paris  to  outwit  Napoleon,  and  every  lesser  plot¬ 
ter  in  Europe,  by  securing  the  navigation  of  the 
Mississippi  and  making  the  Louisiana  Purchase. 

Now  let  us  add  to  this  rugged  and  incomplete 
outline  of  the  stupendous  work  accomplished 
during  Jefferson’s  long  career  of  public  service, 
these  further  facts:  He  invented  the  system  of 
copying  letters  in  letter-press,  now  in  universal 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON. 


465 


use  the  world  over;  he  introduced  stereotyping 
and  the  culture  of  upland  rice  in  America;  it  is 
largely  to  his  influence  and  example  that  we  are 
indebted  for  the  classical  and  artistic  features 
of  our  justly-famed  Colonial  Architecture;  his 
private  library  of  6,000  volumes,  in  many  lan¬ 
guages,  supplied  the  foundation  of  our  great 
Congressional  Library,  after  the  British  burned 
our  Capitol  in  the  War  of  1812;  and,  finally,  as 
philosopher,  moralist,  inventor,  scientist,  lin¬ 
guist,  scholar,  and  patron  of  arts  and  education, 
he  put  the  moneyed  “ philanthropists’ ’  of  our 
day  to  utter  shame  by  proving,  in  the  sacrifice 
of  a  great  fortune,  and  in  tireless  intellectual 
benefactions,  that  he  despised  pocket-interest  and 
mere  lust  of  personal  glory  at  the  expense  of 
other  people. 

We  live  in  an  age  of  specialization. 

The  special  work  to  which  Jefferson  stands 
pledged  from  early  youth,  was  to  prove  himself 
an  “ honest  advocate  of  his  country’s  rights.” 
He  hewed  true  to  the  line,  regardless  of  where 
the  chips  might  fall.  As  patriot,  penman  of 
Revolutionary  literature,  statesman,  law-giver, 
diplomatist,  political  leader,  executive,  and  sage 
in  counsel,  he  did  a  work  the  like  of  which  no 
other  mortal  man  has  ever  yet  achieved.  And 
beyond  this— the  special  work  to  which  he 
pledged  himself— he  had  power  enough  to  prove 
that  fortune,  opportunity,  pastime,  and  social 
ambition,  are  all  sweetest  when  inspired  by  an 
honest  resolve  to  make  eating,  sleeping,  and 
waking  subservient  to  the  single  aim  of  bettering 
the  condition  of  all  mankind.  Materialists  may 


466 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


tell  us  there  is  nothing  after  this ;  egoists  may 
reason  that  man  is  governed  inexorably  by  self- 
interest;  and  worldly-wise  money-makers  may 
teach  by  barbarian  example  that  4 'looking  out 
for  No.  1  ”  is  the  only  gospel  of  success — But  all 
of  this  becomes  mere  confusion  of  thought  when 
we  face  the  facts  of  experience.  Those  of  us  who 
have  seen  the  light  in  a  fond  mother’s  eyes;  who 
have  reared  helpless  little  children  through  in¬ 
fancy  to  strong  maturity ;  who  have  fought  life ’s 
battles  and  won  independence;  and  who  have 
witnessed  the  scourge  of  needless  misery  which 
still  curses  all  races  of  mankind — we  know,  by 
the  high  warrant  of  intellectual  honesty,  that  life 
would  not  be  worth  living  and  progress  would 
be  impossible,  were  it  not  for  the  higher  law  of 
human  nature  which  impels  us  to  find  happiness 
through  ability  and  opportunity  to  serve  others. 

Now  let  us  face  the  facts  of  life. 

Millions  upon  millions  of  brave  souls  have 
lived  and  died  before  and  for  us.  The  inner  pur¬ 
pose  which  has  moved  them  all,  has  been  to  better 
their  own  conditions  and  make  life  easier  and 
sweeter  for  those  who  come  after.  Among 
statesmen,  Caesar  did  a  truly  grand  work  in  his 
day;  but  Jefferson  did  a  far  grander  and  nobler 
work,  because  he  lived  nineteen  centuries  later, 
and  stood  firmly  upon  Caesar’s  shoulders.  The 
day  has  gone  by  for  senseless  fighting  among  our¬ 
selves.  The  heroes  who  died  in  defense  of  our 
liberties  have  done  enough  of  that  to  exempt  us 
from  such  bloody  necessity.  Reason  rules  the 
world  now;  and  as  Andrew  Jackson  has  written, 
were  we  base  enough  to  surrender  our  inde- 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON. 


467 


pendent  rights,  secured  to  us  by  the  bravery  and 
blood  of  our  forefathers,  we  are  unworthy  of  the 
name  of  freemen/’ 

What  we  now  need  to  realize  is,  that  Jefferson 
solved  the  science  and  proved  the  system  of  rep¬ 
resentative  government  by  majority  vote  of  full- 
grown  and  formally  recognized  freemen  who  are 
able  to  fight.  Herbert  Spencer,  as  scientist  and 
greatest  of  evolutionary  philosophers,  has  writ¬ 
ten  the  law  of  equal  freedom  in  these  words : 

f  _ 

“  Every  man  has  freedom  to  do  all  that  he 
wills,  provided  he  does  not  infringe  the  equal 
freedom  of  every  other  man.” 


But  Thomas  Jefferson  knew  this  law  before 
Herbert  Spencer  lived.  And  in  addition  to  be¬ 
ing  a  political  philosopher,  Jefferson  was  also  a 
trained  lawyer  and  great  constructive  statesman. 
He  saw  the  inevitable  and  burdensome  abuses  of 
every  system  of  kingly  and  aristocratic  govern¬ 
ment  ;  he  read  the  history  of  the  little  Greek  dem¬ 
ocracies  in  the  original  text  of  their  great  writ¬ 
ers  ;  he  understood  Caesar  and  the  Roman  system 
better  than  if  he  had  lived  under  them;  he  even 
studied  Saxon,  “as  an  aid  to  legal  philology,” 
and  that  he  might  read  aright  the  records  of  our 
Saxon  ancestors  who  4  4  left  their  native  wilds  and 
woods  in  the  North  of  Europe,”  where  they  had 
never  submitted  to  any  other  rule  than  that  of 
their  chosen  representatives  in  Folk-house, 
elected  by  majority  vote  of  fighters  and  freemen. 
Thus  it  was  that  Jefferson  lived  to  write  the  uni¬ 
versal  law  of  civilized  society  in  just  seven 
words : 


468 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


‘‘That  government  is  best  which  governs 
least. 1  ’ 

The  time  is  now  full  ripe  to  have  done  with 
sentimental  and  impracticable  theories  of  social¬ 
ism,  or  “government  ownership,’ ’  as  a  remedy 
for  the  intolerable  evils  which  Protection  and 
Monopoly  have  heaped  upon  us.  What  every 
American  freeman  wants,  and  all  he  asks,  is  lib¬ 
erty  and  opportunity.  The  one  is  guaranteed  by 
our  laws,  and  the  other  is  provided  in  plenty  by 
bounteous  Nature.  Society  is  a  growth— not  a 
creation.  Every  line  and  letter  of  our  Constitu¬ 
tion  was  written  because  human  experience  had 
proved  the  need  for  it.  That  experience  covered 
nearly  two  centuries  of  experiment  in  self-gov¬ 
ernment  on  this  continent ;  and  back  of  that  was 
the  written  record  of  uncounted  centuries  of  ex¬ 
periment  with  every  known  theory  of  govern¬ 
ment  in  Europe.  Our  forefathers  rejected  the 
pure  democracy  of  the  Greeks,  because  it  had 
proved  a  failure — because  its  “government  own¬ 
ership”  and  its  impracticable  ideals  of  citizen¬ 
ship  had  literally  wrecked  that  truly  wonderful 
civilization.  Upon  the  other  hand,  they  rejected 
kingly  and  aristocratic  rule,  because  everywhere, 
in  all  history,  it  had  resulted  in  that  tyranny  and 
oppression  which  George  the  Third  did  his  utmost 
to  fasten  upon  this  continent.  They  held  fast  to 
representative  government  by  select  men,  chosen 
by  majority  vote  of  fighting  freemen,  because 
that  system  had  piloted  our  race  since  the  very 
earliest  times  of  which  we  have  record — in  the 
North  of  Europe,  in  Scotia,  in  Britain,  in  Nor¬ 
mandy,  and  in  America.  An  unconquerable  love 


FROM  CAESAE  TO  JEFFERSON. 


469 


of  personal  liberty  is  the  distinguishing  charac¬ 
teristic  of  our  race.  As  a  means  of  enjoying  the 
fullest  possible  measure  of  individual  freedom, 
our  forbears  have  always  claimed  their  flocks, 
their  farms,  and  their  firesides  as  their  very 
own.  Throughout  all  our  history  they  have  re¬ 
stricted  government  to  the  narrowest  possible 
limits;  and  ever  and  always  they  have  relied 
upon  the  ages-old  device  of  fairly  choosing  rep¬ 
resentatives  whom  they  could  trust  to  look  after 
the  rigidly-limited  business  of  administering 
public  affairs.  They  well  knew  that  the  glorious 
Greeks  were  finally  forced  to  abject  surrender  of 
all  their  rights  because  slavery,  communism,  and 
socialism  were  the  ill-chosen  experiments  which 
destroyed  personal  liberty.  They  also  saw,  with 
clear-eyed  understanding,  that  Eome  fell  after 
an  unexampled  era  of  material  splendor  and  mili¬ 
tary  power,  solely  because  the  Romans  ignored 
the  natural  rights  of  the  individual,  and  knew 
nothing  of  the  Saxon  system  of  representative 
assemblies.  Dr.  John  Fiske  has  made  all  this  as 
clear  as  day  for  men  who  think ;  and  I  trust  that 
the  following  brief  quotations  from  himself, 
Mason,  and  Jefferson,  will  be  enough  to  give  my 
readers  the  sure  direction  of  that  future  course 
which  we  must  take— because  our  fathers  have 
sailed  it  safely  through  every  stress  of  storm  and 
circumstance  in  all  the  recorded  past: 

“In  the  welding  together  of  primitive  shifting  tribes  into 
stable  and  powerful  nations,  we  can  seem  to  discern  three  dif¬ 
ferent  methods  that  have  been  followed  at  different  times  and 
places,  with  widely  different  results.  In  all  cases  the  fusion  has 
been  effected  by  war,  but  it  has  gone  on  in  three  broadly  con- 


470 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


trasted  ways.  The  first  of  these  methods,  which  has  been  fol¬ 
lowed  from  time  immemorial  in  the  Oriental  world,  may  be 
roughly  described  as  conquest  without  incorporation.  A  tribe 
grows  to  national  dimensions  by  conquering  and  annexing  its 
neighbors,  without  admitting  them  to  a  share  in  its  political 
life.  Probably  there  is  always  at  first  some  incorporation,  or 
even  perhaps  some  crude  germ  of  federative  alliance;  but  this 
goes  very  little  way,— only  far  enough  to  fuse  together  a  few 
closely  related  tribes,  agreeing  in  speech  and  habits,  into  a  single 
great  tribe  that  can  overwhelm  its  neighbors.  After  reaching 
that  point,  the  conquering  tribe  simply  annexes  its  neighbors  and 
makes  them  its  slaves. 

‘  ‘  The  second  method  by  which  nations  have  been  made  may  be 
called  the  Roman  method;  and  we  may  briefly  describe  it  as 
conquest  with  incorporation,  but  without  representation.  The 
secret  of  Rome's  wonderful  strength  lay  in  the  fact  that  she 
incorporated  the  vanquished  peoples  into  her  own  body  politic. 
One  after  another  Italian  tribes  and  Italian  towns  were  not 
merely  overcome  but  admitted  to  a  share  in  the  political  rights 
and  privileges  of  the  victors.  Never  before  had  so  many  people 
been  brought  under  one  government  without  making  slaves  of 
most  of  them.  Liberty  had  existed  before,  whether  in  barbaric 
tribes  or  in  Greek  cities.  Union  had  existed  before,  in  Assyrian 
or  Persian  despotisms.  Now  liberty  and  union  were  for  the 
first  time  joined  together,  with  consequences  enduring  and  stupen¬ 
dous.  The  whole  Mediterranean  world  was  brought  under  one 
government ;  ancient  barriers  of  religon,  speech,  and  custom  were 
overthrown  in  every  direction;  and  innumerable  barbarian  tribes, 
from  the  Alps  to  the  wilds  of  northern  Britain,  from  the  Bay  of 
Biscay  to  the  Carpathian  mountains,  were  more  or  less  com¬ 
pletely  transformed  into  Roman  citizens,  protected  by  Roman 
law,  and  sharing  in  the  material  and  spiritual  benefits  of  Roman 
civilization.  This  was  a  prodigious  work,  which  raised  human  life 
to  a  much  higher  plane  than  that  which  it  had  formerly  occu¬ 
pied,  and  endless  gratitude  is  due  to  the  thousands  of  steadfast 
men  who  in  one  way  or  another  devoted  their  lives  to  its  ac¬ 
complishment. 

‘  ‘  The  essential  vice  of  the  Roman  system  was  that  it  had  been 
unable  to  avoid  weakening  the  spirit  of  personal  independence 
and  crushing  out  local  self-government  among  the  peoples  to 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON. 


471 


whom  it  had  been  applied.  It  owed  its  wonderful  success  to 
joining  Liberty  with  Union,  but  as  it  went  on  it  found  itself 
compelled  gradually  to  sacrifice  Liberty  to  Union,  strengthening 
the  hands  of  the  central  government  and  enlarging  its  functions 
more  and  more,  until  by  and  by  the  political  life  of  the  several 
parts  had  so  far  died  away  that,  under  the  pressure  of  attack 
from  without,  the  Union  fell  to  pieces  and  the  whole  political 
system  had  to  be  slowly  and  painfully  reconstructed. 

“Now,  if  we  ask  why  the  Roman  government  found  itself  thus 
obliged  to  sacrifice  personal  liberty  and  local  independence  to 
the  paramount  necessity  of  holding  the  empire  together,  the 
answer  will  point  us  to  the  essential  and  fundamental  vice  of  the 
Roman  method  of  nation-making.  It  lacked  the  principle  of 
representation. 

“The  old  Roman  world  knew  nothing  of  representative  assem¬ 
blies.  Its  senates  were  assemblies  of  notables,  constituting  in  the 
main  an  aristocracy  of  men  who  had  held  high  office;  its  popular 
assemblies  were  primary  assemblies — town-meetings.  There  was 
no  notion  of  such  a  thing  as  political  power  delegated  by  the 
people  to  representatives  who  were  to  wield  it  away  from  home 
and  out  of  sight  of  their  constituents. ,  ’ 

“The  third  method  of  nation-making  may  be  called  the  Teu¬ 
tonic  or  pre-eminently  English  method.  It  differs  from  the 
Oriental  and  Roman  methods  which  we  have  been  considering  in 
a  feature  of  most  profound  significance;  it  contains  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  representation.  For  this  reason,  though  like  all  nation¬ 
making  it  was  in  its  early  stages  attended  with  war  and  conquest, 
it  nevertheless  does  not  necessarily  require  war  and  conquest  in 
order  to  be  put  into  operation.  Of  the  other  two  methods  war 
was  an  essential  part.  Where  representative  government  is 
once  established,  it  is  possible  for  a  great  nation  to  be  formed 
by  the  peaceful  coalescence  of  neighboring  states,  or  by  their 
union  into  a  federal  body.  An  instance  of  the  former  was  the 
coalescence  of  England  and  Scotland  effected  early  in  the  eight¬ 
eenth  century  after  ages  of  mutual  hostility;  for  instances 
of  the  latter  we  have  Switzerland  and  the  United  States.  At 
the  close  of  our  Civil  War  there  were  now  and  then  zealous 
people  to  be  found  who  thought  that  the  Southern  States  ought 
to  be  treated  as  conquered  territory,  governed  by  prefects  sent 


472 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


from  Washington,  and  held  down  by  military  force  for  a  gen¬ 
eration  or  so.  Let  us  hope  that  there  are  few  to-day  who  can 
fail  to  see  that  such  a  course  would  have  been  fraught  with 
almost  as  much  damage  as  the  secession  movement  itself.  At  least 
it  would  have  been  a  hasty  confession,  quite  uncalled  for  and 
quite  untrue,  that  American  federalism  had  thus  far  proved 
itself  incompetent,— that  we  had  indeed  preserved  our  national 
unity,  but  only  at  the  frightful  cost  of  sinking  to  a  lower  plane 
of  national  life.  ’ ’  —Dr.  John  Fislce, 

Every  husbandman  will  be  quickly  converted  into  a  soldier 
when  he  knows  and  feels  that  he  is  to  fight,  not  In  defense  of  the 
rights  of  a  particular  family,  or  a  prince,  but  of  his  own.  This 
is  the  true  construction  of  the  pro  aris  et  focis  which  has,  in  all 
ages,  performed  such  wonders.  It  was  this  which  in  ancient 
times  enabled  the  little  cluster  of  Grecian  republics  to  resist,  and 
almost  constantly  to  defeat,  the  Persian  monarch.  It  was  this 
which  supported  the  States  of  Holland  against  a  body  of  veteran 
troops  through  a  thirty  years’  war  with  Spain,  then  the  greatest 
monarchy  in  Europe,  and  finally  rendered  them  victorious.  It  is 
this  which  preserves  the  freedom  and  independence  of  the  Swiss 
Cantons  in  the  midst  of  th  most  powerful  nations.  And  who 
that  reflects  seriously  upon  the  situation  in  America,  in  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  the  late  war  (of  the  Revolution)— without  arms— without 
soldiers— without  trade,  money  or  credit— in  a  manner  destitute 
of  all  resources— but  must  ascribe  our  success  to  this  pervading 
all-powerful  principle?’ ’  -George  Mason. 

Every  man  and  every  body  of  men  on  earth  possess  the  right 
of  self-government.  They  receive  it  with  their  being  from  the 
hand  of  nature.  Individuals  exercise  it  by  their  single  will; 
collections  of  men  by  that  of  their  majority;  for  the  law  of  the 
majority  is  the  natural  law  of  every  society  of  men.” 

Nor  are  we  acting  for  ourselves  alone,  but  for  the  whole 
human  race.  The  event  of  our  experiment  is  to  show  whether 
man  can  be  trusted  with  self-government.  The  eyes  of  suffering 
humanity  are  fixed  on  ns  with  anxiety  as  their  only  hope;  and  on 
such  a  theater,  for  such  a  cause,  w'e  must  suppress  all  smaller  pas¬ 
sions  and  local  considerations.  The  leaders  of  Federalism  say 
that  man  cannot  be  trusted  with  his  own  government.  We  must 
do  no  act  which  shall  replace  them  in  the  direction  of  the  ex- 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON. 


473 


periment.  We  must  not,  by  any  departure  from  principle,  disgust 
the  mass  of  our  fellow-citizens  who  have  confided  to  us  this  inter¬ 
esting  cause.  ’  ’ 

“  If  we  move  in  mass,  be  it  ever  so  circuitously,  we  shall  attain 
our  object;  but  if  we  break  into  squads,  everyone  pursuing  the 
path  he  thinks  most  direct,  we  become  an  easy  conquest  to  those 
who  can  now  barely  hold  us  in  check.  I  repeat  again  that  we 
ought  not  to  scliismatize  on  either  man  or  measures.  Principles 
alone  can  justify  that.”  —Thomas  Jefferson. 

As  compared  with  the  problems  which  con¬ 
fronted  our  Revolutionary  fathers,  our  present 
problems  are  like  lilliputians  standing  beside 
six-foot  fighters,  full-armed  and  eager  for  the 
fray.  To  doubt  the  issue,  is  to  doubt  that  light 
and  learning  lead  mankind ! 

The  patriots  of  1776  had  fighting  enough,  on 
land  and  sea,  with  a  foreign  foe  who  deliberately 
attempted  to  overthrow  our  right  to  local  self- 
government.  Washington  taught  that  tyrant  the 
ignoble  folly  of  his  mistake :  and  Andrew  Jackson 
and  Ulysses  S.  Grant  have  taught  us  the  senseless 
folly  of  fighting  among  ourselves.  Jefferson  saw 
the  full  meaning  of  Washington’s  work;  and  he 
foresaw,  with  the  clear  eye  of  a  prophet,  all  that 
Jackson  and  Grant  would  he  forced  to  do  if  we 
rebelled  against  “  Union,  the  last  anchor  of  our 
hope.  ’  ’  Shallow  writers  have  sought  to  discredit 
Jefferson  as  an  executive— a  man  of  action— be¬ 
cause  he  deplored,  and  did  all  that  mortal  man 
could  do,  in  every  station  that  he  occupied,  to 
avoid  resort  to  war  and  bloodshed.  But  critics 
of  that  calibre  were  simply  unable  to  understand 
the  man.  They  had  not  mind  enough  to  compre¬ 
hend  that  Jefferson’s  genius  enabled  him  to 
clearly  see  that  frank  and  friendly  negotiation— 


474 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


arbitration,  as  we  word  it  now— was  a  more  po¬ 
tent  and  powerful  force  than  either  armies  or 
navies.  Witness  this  from  the  pen  of  Gouver- 
neur  Morris,  while  Jefferson  was  President: 

“It  is  the  fashion  with  those  discontented  creatures  called 
Federalists,  to  say  that  our  President  is  not  a  Christian;  yet 
they  must  acknowledge  that  in  true  Christian  meekness,  when 
smitten  on  one  cheek  he  turns  the  other.  .  .  .  He  believes, 
for  instance,  in  the  perfectibility  of  man,  the  wisdom  of  mobs, 
and  moderation  of  Jacobins.  He  believes  in  payment  of  debts 
by  diminution  of  revenue,  in  defense  of  territory  by  reduction 
of  armies,  and  in  vindication  of  rights  by  the  appointment  of 
ambassadors.  ’  * 

The  particular  ambassador  to  whom  Mr.  Mor¬ 
ris  referred,  was  one  James  Monroe,  who  nego¬ 
tiated  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  and  who  after¬ 
wards  gave  us  what  is  known  as  the  Monroe 
Doctrine.  And  witness  this  further  commentary 
from  the  pen  of  that  same  frank,  fearless,  and  in¬ 
tellectually  limited  Gouverneur  Morris: 

“In  truth,  there  is  just  now  so  much  of  what  we  call  phil¬ 
osophy  among  our  rulers,  that  we  must  not  be  surprised  at  the 
charge  of  pusillanimity.  .  .  .  Indeed,  it  is  the  fashion  to  say 
that,  when  injured,  it  is  more  honorable  to  wait  in  patience  the 
uncertain  issue  of  negotiation,  than  promptly  to  do  ourselves 
right  by  an  act  of  hostility.  ’ 1 

The  meaning  of  this  is  simply  that  Morris, 
like  Alexander  Hamilton,  put  all  his  trust  in 
armies  and  navies,  under  aristocratic  rule.  They 
had  no  faith  in  Jefferson’s  principles— less  faith 
in  his  pacific  policies.  In  other  words,  they  were 
Englishmen  in  political  philosophy— not  Ameri¬ 
cans.  But  Jefferson  met  and  mastered  them  eas¬ 
ily,  without  resort  to  force— precisely  as  we  can 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON.  475 

meet  and  master  every  combination  of  men,  fat¬ 
tening  upon  legislative  privilege,  which  now  con¬ 
fronts  ns,  by  simply  following  Jefferson’s  pre¬ 
cepts  and  example. 

No  foreign  foe  confronts  ns— not  one  now 
dares  to  face  the  issue  of  such  a  contest.  The 
bitter  lessons  of  the  Civil  War  have  taught  us, 
for  all  time,  that  fighting  among  ourselves  will 
never  again  be  permitted.  A  full  generation  of 
industrial  warfare  between  employers  and  em¬ 
ployed-strikes,  lockouts,  boycotts,  and  unor¬ 
ganized  rioting— these  have  finally  taught  think¬ 
ing  men,  at  least,  the  senselessness  of  appeals  to 
coercion,  when  frank  and  friendly  arbitration  can 
be  safely  employed  to  compose  every  honest  dif¬ 
ference  of  opinion  as  to  wages,  rights,  and  in¬ 
terests.  We  need  only  to  realize  distinctly  that 
the  manly  work  now  immediately  in  hand,  is  to 
hold  our  hotheads  and  theorists  in  subjection,  so 
that  we  may  proceed,  with  orderly  and  law-abid¬ 
ing  system,  in  the  every-day  business  of  setting 
our  political  household  in  order— precisely  as 
Jefferson  and  his  followers  did  the  same  work 
in  their  time.  For  whereas  they  were  confronted 
with  the  grim  necessity  of  trying  a  grand  experi¬ 
ment  in  government,  we  are  confronted  with  no 
such  necessity  now.  Their  work  laid,  broad  and 
deep,  the  lasting  foundations  upon  which  we 
have  reared  the  mightiest  Nation  of  the  earth  to¬ 
day.  We  are  done  with  experiments— done  with 
any  further  need  for  theories  upon  the  subject  of 
the  best  system  of  government  for  enlightened 
mankind.  Our  power,  our  wealth,  and  our  in¬ 
ventions  ;  the  mighty  stream  of  emigration  which 


476 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


pours  upon  our  shores;  the  increasing  number 
of  individuals  and  delegations  who  flock  here  to 
learn  how  we  manage  affairs;  the  swelling  tide 
of  our  exports  and  imports;  the  unparalleled 
and  prolonged  boom  in  the  market  value  of  our 
securities,  and  even  the  speculative  Trust  stocks 
—all  these  evidences  of  prosperity  and  growth 
point  directly  to  the  obvious  fact  that  we  are  now 
in  possession  of  the  best  system  of  government 
that  the  world  has  ever  known. 

Unthinking  people  are  much  disturbed  over 
the  municipal  corruption  which  has  filled  our 
newspapers  with  political  scandal  since  the  days 
of  the  Tweed  ring.  But  do  these  people  realize 
that  we  have  builded  new  cities,  great  and  small, 
in  such  unheard-of  numbers  in  the  short  time 
since  Appomattox  firmly  established  our  Union, 
that  we  have  not  yet  had  time  to  give  science  and 
system  to  city  government? 

Shrewd  men  have  made  so  many  millions  out 
of  railroad  franchises  since  the  Civil  War  that 
uninformed  people  fear  we  may  be  overwhelmed 
by  the  power  of  these  magnates  of  the  transpor¬ 
tation  world.  But  do  such  people  realize  that 
during  the  past  generation  we  have  been  so  busy 
with  the  heavy  work  of  building,  and  then  re¬ 
building,  tens  of  thousands  of  miles  of  railroads, 
that  we  have  simply  not  yet  had  time  to  establish 
that  system  of  national  supervision  which  is  cer¬ 
tain  to  insure  equal  rates  for  every  individual 
who  has  need  to  use  our  railroads— and  our  pipe¬ 
lines  ? 

Men  who  set  apart  no  time  for  reading  his¬ 
tory,  are  persuaded  that  our  modern  promoters 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON.  477 

of  “combinations”  have  discovered  a  new  sys¬ 
tem  of  business  which  is  destined  to  revolution¬ 
ize  industry  and  commerce.  But  have  these  men 
ever  stopped  long  enough  to  study  the  wonderful 
combination  of  forces  which  ruled  the  Roman 
Empire— the  superb  organization  which  enabled 
the  Roman  Catholic  church  to  survive  the  Dark 
Ages— and  the  unmatched  Federation  of  free 
peoples  and  individual  States  which  forms  the 
American  Union  1  Beside  these  mighty  combi¬ 
nations,  the  contemptible  little  pocket-interest 
schemes  of  Wall  Street  promoters  are  mere  gad¬ 
flies  which  annoy  the  body  politic. 

Finally,  European  travelers  who  come  to  study 
us,  and  penny-wise  philosophers  who  descant 
upon  our  present  and  future,  see  here  so  much  to 
amaze,  confuse,  and  confound  them,  that  news¬ 
papers,  periodicals,  story  books,  and  especially 
new  political  dissertations— all  these  teem  with 
theories,  philosophies,  and  predictions  as  to  the 
future  of  society.  But  all  this,  for  the  most  part, 
is  sheer  nonsense.  “There  is  nothing  new  un¬ 
der  the  sun,  ’  ’  wrote  the  philosophers  of  the  olden 
time.  And  we  may  be  sure  they  were  right;  be¬ 
cause  human  nature  and  fundamental  principles 
endure  forever.  The  most  we  can  do,  and  all  we 
need  do  to  prove  ourselves  worthy  of  those 
gone  before,  is  to  adapt  new  conditions  to  the 
universal  laws  of  nature  and  society  which  have 
thus  far  been  discovered  and  proved. 

Let  us  have  done  with  doubts  and  fears. 

The  Patriots  of  the  Revolution  gave  us  a  Con¬ 
stitution  “the  wisest  ever  yet  presented  to  man.” 
Thomas  Jefferson  was  the  genius  who  shaped 


478 


JEFFERSONIAN  DEMOCRACY. 


that  second  Magna  Charta  of  onr  race-inherited 
liberties.  This  is  true  because,  without  his  Sum¬ 
mary  View  of  the  Rights  of  British  America, 
without  his  Declaration  of  Independence,  without 
his  Virginia  Code,  without  the  ten  indispensable 
amendments  to  the  Constitution  which  his  influ¬ 
ence  won  for  us,  without  his  purchase  of  the  Lou¬ 
isiana  Territory,  without  his  unmatched  leader¬ 
ship  in  organizing  the  great  party  of  the  people, 
and  finally,  without  the  immortal  platform  of  po¬ 
litical  principles  which  he  gave  us  in  his  first  In¬ 
augural  Address— without  these  written  records 
of  a  revolution  wrought  in  political  science, 
American  institutions  could  not  possibly  be  what 
they  are.  In  truth,  Jefferson’s  thought  and  work 
pervade  every  fiber  of  our  governmental  systems. 
And  never  while  time  lasts  and  representative 
government  by  the  people  endures,  can  the  spell 
of  his  influence  be  lost. 

In  his  writings  we  find  the  line  and  letter  for 
every  rule  of  action  which  we  now  need  to  guide 
us  on  our  way,  because  he  probed  to  the  bottom 
every  fact  and  theory  of  the  true  science  of  gov¬ 
ernment;  and  he  solved  the  problem  for  us— just 
so  surely  as  Newton  solved  the  underlying  prob¬ 
lems  of  physical  science.  Of  the  more  than  eighty 
millions  who  now  compose  our  society,  an  aver¬ 
age  of  one  full  grown  fighter  for  every  five  stands 
ever-ready  to  shoulder  arms  and  go  out  to  mor¬ 
tal  battle  in  defense  of  our  institutions  and  our 
rights  whenever  occasion  calls.  They  need  no 
argument ;  they  need  no  conversion.  They  know 
instinctively,  as  a  race  inheritance,  that  America 
is  the  hope  of  mankind. 


FBOM  CAESAR  TO  JEFFERSON.  479 

Viewing  the  facts  for  myself,  I  know  no 
shadow  of  doubt  that  the  time  is  surely  coming 
when  mankind  shall  realize  in  fact  the  hope  of 
that  great  poet  who  predicted  “the  Parliament 
of  man,  the  Federation  of  the  world. ”  It  is 
nothing  less  than  senseless  to  suppose  that  civil¬ 
ized  Europe  can  go  on  forever  arming  for  bloody 
battle,  when  the  world  has  become  a  mere  neigh¬ 
borhood,  when  open  debate  can  settle  every  dif¬ 
ference  of  opinion,  and  when  a  Congress  of  wise 
men,  representing  Federated  States— each  of 
which  enjoys  local  self-government— can  be  safe¬ 
ly  relied  upon  for  that  rule  of  action  which  will 
yield  the  largest  benefit  to  all.  In  my  belief  the 
Peace  Conference  at  the  Hague  is  the  first  step 
towards  “that  consummation  devoutly  to  be 
wished.’7  But  whether  that  he  true  or  no ,  the 
plain  duty  which  now  rests  upon  the  thinkers  and 
leaders  of  the  American  people,  is  to  bravely  go 
on  with  the  work  “which  they  who  fought  have 
thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.”  The  undeniable 
hope  and  destiny  of  our  race,  is  ‘  ‘  peace  on  earth, 
good  will  to  men.”  And  as  men  of  action,  deal¬ 
ing  with  the  physical  forces  about  us,  if  we  be 
true  to  our  fathers,  true  to  ourselves,  and  true 
to  our  children,  every  man  of  us  will  now  pledge 
himself  to  the  thought  in  that  parting  message 
which  the  Sage  of  Monticello  uttered  on  his  death¬ 
bed  :  “I  HAVE  DONE  FOR  MY  COUNTRY,  AND  FOR  ALL 
MANKIND,  ALL  THAT  I  COULD  DO  ;  AND  I  NOW  RESIGN 
MY  SOUL,  WITHOUT  FEAR,  TO  MY  GOD,  MY  DAUGHTER 
TO  MY  COUNTRY.” 


